“Poverty” pays better than middle-class employment

I have long maintained that the critical problem with the American welfare state is not “makers vs. takers,” but rather makers who are also takers.  A prosperous free society can afford safety-net programs for the truly impoverished, and the citizens of such a society are going to insist on funding one.  The great danger of the classic welfare model is that the “safety net becomes a hammock,” by eroding the work ethic of those who spend generations within it.  This can inflict horrendous damage on the lower echelons of society – look at what happened to the supposed beneficiaries of the Great Society – but the rest of the national economic structure can survive it.  The political will to reform bloated and corrupt welfare programs can still be marshaled.

Read more: http://www.humanevents.com/2012/11/28/poverty-pays-better-than-middle-class-employment/