Social justice experts have long identified the need for a safety net to catch some of society’s most vulnerable members, but just what should that safety net look like?

Eli Hager, a reporter with the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica, spent much of 2021 examining welfare across the Southwest, including in a story about Arizona’s Department of Child Safety.

Hager found something of a paradox at the center of the way our state gives out these welfare dollars. The Show spoke with him to learn about his findings.

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