Economics, as usual, offers a straightforward value-free way to think about the issue: Incentives. When you put all our social programs together, low income Americans face roughly 100% marginal tax rates. Earn an extra dollar, lose a dollar of benefits. It's not that simple, of course, with multiple cliffs of infinite tax rates (earn an extra cent, lose a program entirely), and depends on how many and which programs people sign up for. But the order of magnitude is right.The incentive effect is clear: don't work (legally). As Phil Gramm and Mike Solon report,Since 1967, average inflation-adjusted transfer payments to low-income households—the bottom 20%—have grown from $9,677 to $45,389. During that same period, the percentage of prime working-age adults in the bottom 20% of income earners who actually worked collapsed from 68% to 36%.36%. The latter number is my main point, we'll get to cost later. Similarly, the WSJ points to a report by Jonathan Bain and Jonathan Ingram at the Foundation for Government Accountability thatthere are four million able-bodied adults without dependents on food stamps, and three in four don’t work at all. Less than 3% work full-time.3%.
Life-long, multi-generational dependency on the government is the goal of the Left, all in the name of "compassion."
That unpopular senile puppet really ate your side's free lunch.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to Republicans losing their fifth consecutive debt ceiling showdown in 2025.