Can the welfare state improve human well-being in middle and low income countries? Previous empirical work, while invaluable, suffers from several shortcomings. Notably, an emphasis on OECD countries, overall spending as the main variable, and "happiness" as the principle outcome. Our study goes beyond this, by extending the impact of the welfare state (using two new measures--social security coverage and Welfare Regime-- in the Quality of Government 2021 data set) to a sample of middle and low income countries. We examine the impact of the welfare state on three metrics of human well-being: life satisfaction, longevity (healthy life years), and objective well-being (Human Development Index). Our study relies on both aggregate and public opinion data from 1980 to the present. We find, controlling for a variety of political, economic, and social factors, that the welfare state exerts a positive and strong impact on human well-being in middle and low income countries. We conclude with some implications for the study of welfare regimes in a rapidly changing world, and for human well-being in general.