The earned income tax credit (EITC) was small through the 1970s and 1980s and then expanded sharply in the 1990s, reaching roughly $60 billion a year. The child tax credit (CTC) began in 1998 and grew quickly to a similar size. Both are refundable credits paid through the tax system and both are tied to having earnings, so they do not create the poverty trap that a pure guarantee does.
Cash welfare, now Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), is the flat line: roughly the same in real terms in 2016 as in 1975, and far smaller than either credit. The shift from cash assistance toward work-linked credits is one of the largest changes in United States antipoverty policy of the past fifty years. The slider reads all three series at a chosen year; the values are sampled from the book's figure.