The issue with giving people money is that they can only spend. Money as it stands doesn't have a use outside of satisfying peoples' needs. Sure, they can invest in capital, but in every welfare system devised they make it a point of function to ensure they don't have enough to develop capital (a rather cruel system).

The only real "welfare" programs that have worked in the past is just to employ people in government. They're still living off taxpayer money (scary I know) but are contributing back with their labor and their ideas of how systems should be ran. The military, firefighters/police, and municipal jobs have lifted millions out of poverty and into the middle class. However, as it stands, most government jobs require a college education (when it's usually unnecessary) and has barred the impoverished from getting those opportunities. Instead, people who have the means to afford higher-ed (the middle class+) battle it out for those positions which frankly aren't worth the time investment of attending a 4-year.