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Why do we give perfectly healthy adult citizens money, food and housing?
A couple of years ago a study was released that attempted to answer this question, because the usual public response is that it is madness to give people money who won't work for it. We read up on this as part of our understanding of the concerns over the national debt, welfare, and where money goes.
The findings of the study were interesting: the people who were on welfare wanted to return to work and more than one in ten people who were part of the study that began welfare one year prior were no longer on welfare and had become a productive part of society. By finding work and becoming a productive part of society again, they had more than repaid, in taxes, the money they had been given by the government. It was found that the detrimental effects of the people who remained on welfare longer than one year and beyond were far outweighed by the positive effects of those who returned to the workforce. The stereotypical "living on welfare bum" recipient did exist in the study and we found that some do take advatage, but without it a large group of people would have remained stagnent in their employment status.
According to the study, these are the reasons the government provides welfare -- the positive effects to the economy and society were much greater than the money invested.
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