Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Noble Work Versus Savage Welfare
Noble Work Versus Savage Welfare
Mar 18, 2025 6:29 PM

In eleven states in the union, welfare pays more than the average pretax first-year wage for a teacher. In thirty-nines states, it pays more than the starting wage for a secretary. And, in the three most generous states a person on welfare can take home more money than an puter programmer.

Those are just some of the eye-opening and distressing findings in a new study by Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes of the Cato Institute on the “work versus welfare tradeoff.”

“Welfare benefits continue to outpace the e that most recipients can expect to earn from an entry-level job, and the balance between welfare and work may actually have grown worse in recent years,” say Tanner and Hughes. “The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work. Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned e Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 per hour.”

The state-by-state estimates are based on a hypothetical family participating in about seven of the 126 federal anti-poverty programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; the Women, Infants and Children program; Medicaid; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and receiving help on housing and utilities.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, that translates into a package of $49,175 in Hawaii, $43,099 in the District of Columbia ($43,099), $42,515 in Massachusetts ($42,515), $38,761 in Connecticut, and and $38,728 in New Jersey. The state with the lowest benefits package in 2013 was Mississippi, at $16,984, followed by Tennessee ($17,413), Arkansas ($17,423), Idaho ($17,766), and Texas (18,037).

“If Congress and state legislatures are serious about reducing welfare dependence and rewarding work,” say Tanner and Hughes, “they should consider strengthening welfare work requirements, removing exemptions, and narrowing the definition of work. Moreover, states should consider ways to shrink the gap between the value of welfare and work by reducing current benefit levels and tightening eligibility requirements.”

The issue is not about providing for the truly needy but taking away an incentive to work for those who are able. As J. Michael Beers wrote in an issue of the Acton Institute journal, Religion and Liberty,

My basic critique of the welfare state is that it has ceased to do what “welfare” should do, namely to “do well” by the citizenry, to provide for their good. Of itself, welfare is a good thing. As Pope John Paul II makes the distinction between democratic and savage capitalism, perhaps we, too, should distinguish democratic welfare from savage welfare. . . .

By “savage” welfare, I mean those programs, initiatives and policies enacted all in the name of “welfare” which deny the nobility of work, which savage life within the womb, and assault even the very lives themselves of those for whom this “welfare” is said to be intended. Our current system, wherein welfare is presumed as an entitlement, not only tolerates but rewards unemployment.

The Cato report provides further evidence that we the current system has e a form of “savage welfare,” providing a disincentive to engage in the nobility of work. That is the primary reason why welfare reform is a moral duty. It’s counterproductive to provide people with “entitlements” when doing so hinders their opportunities for human flourishing.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Resolve this New Year to visit Billy Wilder’s The Apartment
The Big City can be a great place to lose yourself among a crowd, and too often lose your soul. Only love of another can help you find yourself again. Read More… Christmas movies tend to be sentimental, to emphasize the struggles that define our society and our souls, but ultimately they are hopeful and even joyful. Humanity triumphs at the end of the story—for evidence, read my series of essays on The Bishop’s Wife, The Shop Around the Corner,...
Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai charged with another violation of Hong Kong’s repressive NSL
Newspaper publisher Lai and six colleagues were charged with printing, publishing, and selling “seditious publications,” this after being convicted on a variety of charges for their anti-Beijing, pro-freedom activities. Read More… Prominent Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, along with six of his former staff members, were charged by prosecutors with an additional National Security Law (NSL) violation, this time regarding “seditious publications,” as part of their ongoing trial. Seventy-four-year-old Lai has already been convicted under the...
Acton Rome Fellow is making a difference in Africa
The Rev. Dr. Nicholas Chisongo is just one of many Acton fellows setting out to bring reform to the church and hope to the world. Hear what he has to say on the subject of church finance and canon law. Read More… For over 20 years, the Acton Institute’s Rome office has enjoyed a number of extremely impressive academic fellows as part of its prestigious scholarship programs offered to graduate students at pontifical universities. Aiding in the study of theology,...
North Korea’s economic and cultural reversals mark Kim Jong-un’s 10th anniversary
COVID and failures at international summits have caused Pyongyang to reverse economic reforms and openness to South Koran pop culture. The future is beginning to look a lot like his father’s past. Read More… Communism has spawned only one full-scale monarchy: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. On December 17, 2011, 70-year-old Dear Leader Kim Jong-il died. That very same day, Kim’s 27-year-old son, Kim Jong-un, was put forth as the “Great Successor” and surrounded by elderly “mentors” who were...
The American family needs a Miracle on 34th Street now
The ultimate Christmas classic has proved over time to be both prophetic and bitterly realistic. Read More… My Christmas movies series has hitherto considered church (The Bishop’s Wife), work (The Shop Around the Corner), and family (Christmas in Connecticut), munities that constitute America. I’ll conclude with the most famous American Christmas fairy tale of all, Miracle on 34th Street (1947), in which merce, and even marriage are all in trouble, as they are today. The story is straightforward but unpredictable:...
Facebook is a symptom of a much deeper Big Tech problem
Facebook changing its name to Meta will not change the fact that all social media platforms make promises they can’t keep. Read More… At this point, most have heard about Frances Haugen, the whistleblower who leaked documents to the Wall Street Journal this fall detailing how Facebook knew about many of the downsides of its platform, yet chose to prioritize engagement. The documents outline, among other things, how Facebook introduced new reactions in addition to the Like button and then...
This billionaire from Hong Kong is standing up to China’s oppression behind bars
Jimmy Lai remains strongly rooted: first in his fervent Catholic faith, and second in his unshakable support of freedom. Read More… Hong Kong was once a beacon of opportunity, of democracy. It was a political refuge, a blip in a territory controlled munist China. Seemingly overnight, 7.5 million Hong Kongers have had their freedoms stripped from them by an oppressive Chinese regime intentsilencing any voice of dissent — and that doesn’t mean revoking the odd Twitter account. It means imprisonment...
As SCOTUS mulls Maine religious discrimination case, anxious parents wait across the U.S.
The arguments in Carson v. Malkin have been heard but no decision has yet been made. Will families in Maine receive equal access to funding for private religious schools? Will the religious use/status distinction be abolished? Or will the ghost of James G. Blaine raise its eerie head? Read More… Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Carson v. Makin. The appellants in this case, co-represented by the Institute for Justice and my...
This Advent, the Christmas child calls you and me
Mary’s call and response is a powerful reminder of how Advent calls us to model her in humble obedience and service, whatever our vocation. Read More… We arrive at the Christmas stable. We have prepared. The Christ child e to us—Immanuel. We begin by taking a step back. The candle that is lit for the final Sunday of Advent reminds us of Mary, the one who brings the Lord into the world. The Protestant Reformers reacted against Catholic overemphasis on...
Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai wins one in court, as Hong Kong prosecutor’s appeal is denied
In 2020, entrepreneur and Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai beat back an attempt to prosecute him for “intimidating” a pro-Beijing reporter during a Tiananmen Square Massacre vigil. The prosecution appealed, and has now lost, even as Lai remains in prison convicted on other charges. Read More… Hong Kong prosecutors lost their appeal against a magistrate’s decision in September 2020 that cleared charges against media tycoon Jimmy Lai on “intimidating a reporter from a rival newspaper,” according to the South China...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved