Then let me spell it out more explicitly. Some company pays their employees $10 an hour. This isn't enough to get by on, so the government give each of them an

Then let me spell it out more explicitly. Some company pays their employees $10 an hour. This isn't enough to get by on, so the government give each of them an extra $2 an hour to spend on necessities (I know, most welfare systems don't pay out hourly just bear with this example). Who is helped by this extra money? Not the company. If you cut the welfare, the company's profits (or losses) remain exactly the same. Their workers will lead worse lives and experience greater hardship. The workers don't find other jobs. If better paying jobs existed they would have taken them already. Thus, it's not a subsidy for the company. It's a subsidy for the worker. Eliminating welfare has zero impact on the company's profits. This is why making companies pay tax penalties if their workers are on food stamps is a terrible ides. It'd make employers more wary of recipients of welfare, thus making it even harder for poorer minorities, single mothers, etc. to find jobs. And not to mention, it'd create further incentive to outsource or automate these jobs.