When it comes to poverty in America, we have to hold two contradictory thoughts in our heads at the same time.

On the one hand, this is a country that leaves behind too many people. Our child poverty rate is high compared to our peer countries. Many Americans still don’t have enough to eat, a bed to sleep in, or health care for themselves or their families.

On the other hand, an accretion of government programs, built up over the last five decades, has created a semblance of a safety net where once there was none. Programs like the earned income tax credit, expanded greatly in the 1990s, put much-needed money in working poor people’s pockets every year. Food stamps, established in the 1960s but made more generous in later decades, have put food on the table for many families. The Affordable Care Act, though still patchy, has nonetheless provided health care for the previously uninsured.

This patchwork net isn’t perfect, but it has inarguably made a difference in the lives of millions of low-income people […]