The government struggles with a lot — but one thing it excels at is writing checks.

There’s a reason Social Security is one of the U.S. government’s most popular programs: Fraud is minimal. There’s very little hassle with government bureaucrats, and since the program took effect, the elderly poverty rate has fallen from almost 80 percent to 10.9 percent. Check-writing is simple to administer and efficient at meeting its goals: If you give someone money, they will definitely have money. Other kinds of government programs frequently disappoint the hopes poured into them, while checks don’t.

Unfortunately, as I noted in my last column, checks are of limited avail against hard problems. Three studies showed that even substantial transfers did little to help low-income people. Understandably, some readers found this disappointing and infuriating. “What’s your solution, then?” they demanded.

One answer is that there might not be a solution to every problem. For example, the staggering increase in single parenthood is clearly bad for parents and kids, but it’s hard to imagine how the government could significantly boost marriage rates. We shouldn’t do things that don’t work just because we haven’t yet figured out what does.

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That said, there’s more we could do to help lift people out of........

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