david: i started with nariman. i will end with mark.concerned about personal income, for one. the fact is that people actually have less real cash than they used to. >> i think you're right to be concerned about it. the economy has done very well at the upper end. the stock market picked up. real estate prices have rebounded. higher end retailers do okay. higher end resorts are doing well. but the lower end is still pretty squishy. david: right. >> look at earnings reports for mass merchants. they're all struggling. but doesn't seem to break out to the upside. think about consumer confidence numbers. they look a little better. they don't look a whole lot better. doesn't look to me that the economy is about to break out to the upside. we're still a -- david: we're still a middle class society. mark and nariman that was great, very repeckful but you both disagreed and put your cases eloquently. thank you very much. we want to hear from you folks. can the economy bounce back quickly or will this contraction last. send us a message. faceboo

we asked economic analyst nariman hravesh for his thoughts on welfare reform. welfare reform act passed in 1996 -- or "welfare to work"as it has become known -- was a landmarkvent. aftethatwelfare no longeprovided an aernative to working as a way of life. in the late 1990s, welfare reform was touted as spectacular success. the number of welfare recipients fell by more than half. the poverty rate of households headed by women fell by almost as much as you can see in the graph. however, much of the reform's scess in moving millions from welfare to work was e to its serendipitous coincidence with long economic boom that drove the unemployment rate down to a 30-year low duringhe same deca the minimum wage was increased and the earned income tax credit was made more generous. these made it easier for former welfare recipients to earn a living wage. unfortunately, the true success of welfare reform would not be tested until the economy went into recession -- whicit did in 2001. predictably, poverty ras rose again as you can see in thgrh. however, poverty rates stayed