I don't know what the policy was on savings-i.e. to what degree, if at all, they would reduce her monthly amount if she submitted her budget each month and was spending less. I get the impression that it's kind of a basic fixed rate for, i.e., adult not in school with one child...and that it's realistically not enough to save, even if you spend nothing on discretionary purchases or fun. She got around $900 a month, of which $550 alone went towards her part of our rent.

If she'd, for example, made $500 per paycheck (25 hours a week at Canadian mininum wage), that would make $1000 a month, so they'd take $500 off her welfare payment, for a monthly total income of $1400...which is enough to save at least a small amount per month, given our shared living expenses. In the US welfare system, would they cancel your welfare if you were able to save $200 a month of this total?

They did keep cancelling the welfare for unrelated reasons. (Example: her parents had had an education fund for her of about $10,000, but they'd spent it all on her wedding, and they sent her a letter saying her welfare was cancelled until she could submit documents proving this. Not a warning-cancelled. She missed a month or two before submitting the documents, and eventually gave up and just worked more hours.)