They Call It “Helping”—But What If the Real Goal Is Dependence?

We’ve been told that growing social programs means progress—but what if we’ve been celebrating the wrong scoreboard? In this deep dive, Timothy Alexander exposes how major U.S. programs like SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, and housing assistance often measure success by how many people enroll, not by how many get back on their feet and stay there. With historical insight, government data, and no-spin analysis, this episode pulls apart decades of metrics that reward dependency over independence—and asks the question every taxpayer and every working family should be asking: what does success really look like?