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So is it a reasonable conclusion that welfare serves largely as a massive scale corporate subsidy based on this data? If they've determined that welfare has st

So is it a reasonable conclusion that welfare serves largely as a massive scale corporate subsidy based on this data? If they've determined that welfare has statistically irrelevant impacts on the # of people participating in the labor force and the # of hours worked that would seem to imply that welfare recipients are still a needed part of the workforce. That would also lead one to believe that welfare is not allowing substantial lifestyle modification or opportunity for self-improvement.

SapphireSun 11y ago
Here are some additional factors to consider: Number of people being irrelevant might mean that a welfare recipient doesn't work but enables someone else to work, or if someone doesn't get welfare, they work, but their support is withdrawn from someone else. It could also mean that the benefit is not enough for them to consider not working. That is to say that their ambitions are greater than merely surviving, the enabling of which is the foundational goal of a reasonable welfare program. I think I would agree that welfare is a corporate subsidy in some sense, but it covers more people than corporations would without the subsidy, including people unable to work or for whom paid work is less beneficial than some uncompensated task.
tankenmate 11y ago
In fact in the poorest countries this money is often used to buy the means to increase productivity; i.e. buy a sewing machine to make and sell clothes, buy a goat for milking for consumption as well as sale. It is quite often also used so that the family is able to support itself while also sending their children to school instead of sending them to the fields; again another form of increased productivity, albeit in the future. Another point to raise is that in poorer parts of the world there is far less, proportionally, that is provided by corporations, large or small.

SapphireSun 11y ago

Here are some additional factors to consider: Number of people being irrelevant might mean that a welfare recipient doesn't work but enables someone else to work, or if someone doesn't get welfare, they work, but their support is withdrawn from someone else. It could also mean that the benefit is not enough for them to consider not working. That is to say that their ambitions are greater than merely surviving, the enabling of which is the foundational goal of a reasonable welfare program. I think I would agree that welfare is a corporate subsidy in some sense, but it covers more people than corporations would without the subsidy, including people unable to work or for whom paid work is less beneficial than some uncompensated task.

tankenmate 11y ago

In fact in the poorest countries this money is often used to buy the means to increase productivity; i.e. buy a sewing machine to make and sell clothes, buy a goat for milking for consumption as well as sale. It is quite often also used so that the family is able to support itself while also sending their children to school instead of sending them to the fields; again another form of increased productivity, albeit in the future. Another point to raise is that in poorer parts of the world there is far less, proportionally, that is provided by corporations, large or small.