Not sure why this is down voted. Here's a chart from the NY Times showing what it looks like in practice: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/11/10/opinion/10

Not sure why this is down voted. Here's a chart from the NY Times showing what it looks like in practice: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/11/10/opinion/10coy-newsletter-cliffs-3/10coy-newsletter-cliffs-3-jumbo.png?quality=75&auto=webp https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/11/10/opinion/10coy-new... -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/opinion/benefits-cliff-welfare.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/opinion/benefits-cliff-we... For low wage people with children, they really are often better off in a low wage job than a middle wage job. In the example given, going from 25K a year to 50K would mean a lower standard of living. The war on poverty has been a miserable failure.