While there is some truth to what you say, I would point out that (A) a person making $9 a year would still be paying around $900 federal tax, and (B) my understanding is that TANF is not especially intrusive (not sure what you mean by divisive).
I still don't understand the logic of "X will make people angry so you shouldn't do X". Since I already care about how well off poor people are, why should I care about what makes people angry directly. While the government needs votes to stay in power, that doesn't change what in theory is the best policy, it just restricts the set of policies that we can choose from. While increasing welfare and decreasing tax on the poor, while (possibly) removing the minimum wage, might make some people angry, I don't see why this makes it a bad policy.
