XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.liberalism, alt.atheism
XPost: alt.fun, alt.politics.democrats.d
Welfare programs increase the reservation wage of potential workers (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_wage).
Suppose a low-skilled worker has a reservation wage of $20 per hour. He won't take a job if it pays less than $20 per hour. He values his leisure time, and below that wage, he figures he'd prefer to loaf on the couch and collect some form of welfare or scrape by some way. But if a job offer is made that pays him $25 per hour, he'll take it.
Now, suppose unemployment and other welfare benefits will pay him $30 per hour. Then a job that pays $25 per hour won't interest him. He'd prefer to loaf on the
couch until a job offer comes along that pays him *more* than $30 per hour.
Welfare benefits are *not* a subsidy to employers — they are a *tax*. They force
employers to pay *more* than they otherwise would have to pay to induce deadbeats off their couches and into gainful employment.
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