Twenty years ago today, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reauthorization Act, promising famously to “end welfare as we know it.” The goal was to ease poor people away from depending on government and encourage them to work instead. The main achievement of “welfare reform,” as it was better known, was to end the program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and replace it with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).