What they are essentially talking about is what became known as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 that was a bipartisan bill in Congress between Democrats and Republicans that was negotiated with President Bill Clinton. But the law and pieces of it were already proposed in the late 1960s by people on the Right and even Progressives on the Left. That became proposed by law by the Nixon Administration that Chris DeMuth was part of in 1969 and the early 1970s.
What Welfare to Work says is that people who are mentally and physically able to work, will be expected to do that and not be able to collect Welfare indefinitely. And that people who don't currently have the skills to get themselves a good job, they would get assistance to go back to school and finish their education so they can get themselves a good job. This law that the late great Senator Pat Moynahan and today's Progressives called mean-spirited and that people would get kicked out of their homes and starve to death as a result, simply hasn't happened because of the 1996 law.