From Investors Business Daily (excerpt)

Matters were made worse in July 2012, when the administration released a directive from the Department of Health and Human Services announcing that states would be able to waive the law's work requirements. The requirement that able-bodied adults work, prepare for work or look for work in order to receive benefits was deemed too much of a burden for some states and the poor to bear.

A follow-up report by Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes published Monday by Cato shows that it's now a case of back to the future with welfare reform. According to Cato, welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 an hour.

In 11 states, welfare was found to pay "more than the average pretax first-year wage for a teacher. In 39 states, it pays more than the starting wage for a secretary. And in the three most generous states a person on welfare can take home more money than an entry-level computer programmer."

(That is over $60,000 per year for a forty hour job in Hawaii)  Ken