The Salvation Army is best known for offering charitable relief to those in poverty. But for years it has also kept meticulous records of how many people came through its doors, what sort of needs they had, and the cost of their relief.

“It is time to put all that data to use,” said David Jeffrey, national commander of the Salvation Army USA.

In sports, if a game plan is not working, the coach changes it. In medicine, if a course of treatment does not cure a disease, doctors try a different approach. In government, failure means nothing. Government keeps cash flowing with little regard for results. In government, failure endures.

In an attempt to change our approach to poverty and to combat the long-held liberal accusation that conservatives care only about tax cuts for the rich and cutting programs for the poor, the Jack Kemp Foundation sponsored a forum last weekend in Columbia, S.C.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland—Since his party’s impressive election victory in May, British Prime Minister David Cameron is moving quickly to fulfill his campaign promise to ensure welfare benefits are no longer a way of life for many of his fellow citizens.

I often edit better and occasionally think better by keeping a particular person in mind. 

For years in editing WORLD one of our readers, a 50-year-old dentist, appeared to me: Smart and busy, thoughtful but not academic, he wanted to think Christianly and valued a magazine that helped him to do so without wasting his time. 

UN food agencies say statistics from a recent report bode well for hunger eradication. But other relief organizations say the problem runs deeper than the numbers indicate.

The UN’s 2015 State of Food Insecurity report revealed the number of the world’s hungry dropped from more than 1 billion to 795 million in the past quarter-century. The number dropped by 216 million, despite a population increase of nearly 2 billion.

Arizona lawmakers have restricted federally funded welfare benefits to the narrowest time window in the nation.

The restrictions apply to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), which provides cash assistance and potential child-care subsidies for low-income or jobless parents. Under the new state budget, Arizona will cut the longevity of TANF benefits from 24 to 12 months.

State Sen. Kelli Ward, a Republican who debated in favor of the budget cut in March, believes welfare programs are crutches keeping citizens from getting back on their feet.

Several readers have wanted to know more about the plight of the family whose story is the basis for a recent book—Andrea Campbell’s Trapped in America’s Safety Net (University of Chicago Press, 2014)—that I reviewed in WORLD Magazine’s May 16 issue. Here are a few more quotations from the book: