Whether some problem is the “direct” or “indirect” consequence of poverty does not matter for whether poverty reduction programs like TANF are effective.

Oh, yes it does. TANF is a band-aid on poverty; it does not address the systemic issues that poverty creates at all.

t’s a non sequitur.

With respect, I don't think you're using that phrase correctly.

You imply that improving the delivery of social supports like TANF will not be effective at helping the poor (who are, after all, the direct cause of their own problems in your experience!). But other rich countries with better social safety nets enjoy much better outcomes for the poor than the US. It’s strange that you criticize a systemic change to the delivery of welfare to the poor for not being “complex” or “systemic”. I’m not sure how blaming the poor for their problems is more “complex” or “systemic”. On the contrary, that’s highly individualistic and moralizing.

I'm not blaming the poor, and if you think I am, you haven't understood my comment at all. Other countries that have done better in terms of outcomes for the poor achieve those outcomes for a variety of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with government programs but rather culture or societal homogeneity. A lot of countries in Europe enjoy relative ethnic homogeneity compared to the United States and other countries, and champion their success falsely upon the neglect of the fact that they haven't had to deal with the issues that stem from having a multi-ethnic population. Just look at the Netherlands and what happened to their celebratorily tolerant society when they started admitting Islamic immigrants into their population: they experienced culture clash and began isolating immigrant groups into effective camps to "educate" them in order to ease social conflict. In other words, mixing cultures always results in social conflict, and governments tend to abuse the newcomers to those conflicts out of a legitimate desire to preserve their own culture above that of the newcomers'. Egalitarians like to think acclimation is a neat process, but it's anything but. It's hard and difficult and messy, and there really isn't any good solution to it. It requires continued empathy and tolerance, and willful assimilation by the newcomers; if there is resistance from assimilating populations, such as ghettoization, cultural conflict and violence are an inevitability. So, immigrants are sometimes part of the problem. That's just the way it is.