What prevents a country from increasing its welfare budget in a vicious cycle as the percentage of citizens...












-5















Over the past 30 years, the percentage of US citizens on some form of government assistance has been steadily increasing:



US citizens on welfare



This corresponds to a decrease in the labor participation rate over the same period. Note that while rates were even lower before the 80s, this was due to low participation of women in the workforce rather than due to reliance on welfare.



US labor participation rate



Looking at those two graphs we come to a question - what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle? As the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.



Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?










share|improve this question




















  • 1





    I would suggest change the question to read " approaches 50% and beyond"

    – john
    20 hours ago






  • 3





    A more important question might be what this will all look like when AI and robotics automate large swaths of existing jobs out of existence. One could easily imagine a scenario where 50% or more of the population cannot find work.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    18 hours ago






  • 7





    question is full of assumptions. Also, what is "some kind of government benefit"? Do you count the tax breaks for the rich? Many countries have child benefits, which if counted would by itself bring the percentage to roughly 50%.

    – Tom
    15 hours ago











  • How many of those are pensions?

    – pjc50
    15 hours ago











  • @pjc50 pensioners are presumably likewise more likely to vote for whoever promises to increase their pensions.

    – JonathanReez
    6 hours ago
















-5















Over the past 30 years, the percentage of US citizens on some form of government assistance has been steadily increasing:



US citizens on welfare



This corresponds to a decrease in the labor participation rate over the same period. Note that while rates were even lower before the 80s, this was due to low participation of women in the workforce rather than due to reliance on welfare.



US labor participation rate



Looking at those two graphs we come to a question - what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle? As the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.



Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?










share|improve this question




















  • 1





    I would suggest change the question to read " approaches 50% and beyond"

    – john
    20 hours ago






  • 3





    A more important question might be what this will all look like when AI and robotics automate large swaths of existing jobs out of existence. One could easily imagine a scenario where 50% or more of the population cannot find work.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    18 hours ago






  • 7





    question is full of assumptions. Also, what is "some kind of government benefit"? Do you count the tax breaks for the rich? Many countries have child benefits, which if counted would by itself bring the percentage to roughly 50%.

    – Tom
    15 hours ago











  • How many of those are pensions?

    – pjc50
    15 hours ago











  • @pjc50 pensioners are presumably likewise more likely to vote for whoever promises to increase their pensions.

    – JonathanReez
    6 hours ago














-5












-5








-5








Over the past 30 years, the percentage of US citizens on some form of government assistance has been steadily increasing:



US citizens on welfare



This corresponds to a decrease in the labor participation rate over the same period. Note that while rates were even lower before the 80s, this was due to low participation of women in the workforce rather than due to reliance on welfare.



US labor participation rate



Looking at those two graphs we come to a question - what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle? As the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.



Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?










share|improve this question
















Over the past 30 years, the percentage of US citizens on some form of government assistance has been steadily increasing:



US citizens on welfare



This corresponds to a decrease in the labor participation rate over the same period. Note that while rates were even lower before the 80s, this was due to low participation of women in the workforce rather than due to reliance on welfare.



US labor participation rate



Looking at those two graphs we come to a question - what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle? As the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.



Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?







social-welfare






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 11 hours ago







JonathanReez

















asked 21 hours ago









JonathanReezJonathanReez

14k1580159




14k1580159








  • 1





    I would suggest change the question to read " approaches 50% and beyond"

    – john
    20 hours ago






  • 3





    A more important question might be what this will all look like when AI and robotics automate large swaths of existing jobs out of existence. One could easily imagine a scenario where 50% or more of the population cannot find work.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    18 hours ago






  • 7





    question is full of assumptions. Also, what is "some kind of government benefit"? Do you count the tax breaks for the rich? Many countries have child benefits, which if counted would by itself bring the percentage to roughly 50%.

    – Tom
    15 hours ago











  • How many of those are pensions?

    – pjc50
    15 hours ago











  • @pjc50 pensioners are presumably likewise more likely to vote for whoever promises to increase their pensions.

    – JonathanReez
    6 hours ago














  • 1





    I would suggest change the question to read " approaches 50% and beyond"

    – john
    20 hours ago






  • 3





    A more important question might be what this will all look like when AI and robotics automate large swaths of existing jobs out of existence. One could easily imagine a scenario where 50% or more of the population cannot find work.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    18 hours ago






  • 7





    question is full of assumptions. Also, what is "some kind of government benefit"? Do you count the tax breaks for the rich? Many countries have child benefits, which if counted would by itself bring the percentage to roughly 50%.

    – Tom
    15 hours ago











  • How many of those are pensions?

    – pjc50
    15 hours ago











  • @pjc50 pensioners are presumably likewise more likely to vote for whoever promises to increase their pensions.

    – JonathanReez
    6 hours ago








1




1





I would suggest change the question to read " approaches 50% and beyond"

– john
20 hours ago





I would suggest change the question to read " approaches 50% and beyond"

– john
20 hours ago




3




3





A more important question might be what this will all look like when AI and robotics automate large swaths of existing jobs out of existence. One could easily imagine a scenario where 50% or more of the population cannot find work.

– Denis de Bernardy
18 hours ago





A more important question might be what this will all look like when AI and robotics automate large swaths of existing jobs out of existence. One could easily imagine a scenario where 50% or more of the population cannot find work.

– Denis de Bernardy
18 hours ago




7




7





question is full of assumptions. Also, what is "some kind of government benefit"? Do you count the tax breaks for the rich? Many countries have child benefits, which if counted would by itself bring the percentage to roughly 50%.

– Tom
15 hours ago





question is full of assumptions. Also, what is "some kind of government benefit"? Do you count the tax breaks for the rich? Many countries have child benefits, which if counted would by itself bring the percentage to roughly 50%.

– Tom
15 hours ago













How many of those are pensions?

– pjc50
15 hours ago





How many of those are pensions?

– pjc50
15 hours ago













@pjc50 pensioners are presumably likewise more likely to vote for whoever promises to increase their pensions.

– JonathanReez
6 hours ago





@pjc50 pensioners are presumably likewise more likely to vote for whoever promises to increase their pensions.

– JonathanReez
6 hours ago










4 Answers
4






active

oldest

votes


















20














Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context



The labor force hit an absolute peak in the 90's. See the same statistic plotted on a much longer timeline:



enter image description here



The current labor force participation rate is several percentage points higher than at anytime prior to 1978. The labor participation boom of the 90's was probably due to some perfect storm of Clinton-era prosperity, women hitting the workplace, and generations being at just the right spot where 3 generations (greatest generation, boomers, generation X) are all working jobs.



Declining Labor Participation Rates Are Not Correlating With Tax Increases



You see the labor participation rate begin to decline steadily since 2001; now is that because George Bush raised tax rates and expanded the welfare state (no)? Or is it because the economy slowed down (yes)? In fact, while the labor participation rate was beginning to decline in 2001, the top marginal tax rate was not raised, George W Bush cut it three times during that decline, which contradicts the OP's thesis that these participation rate declines correlate with tax increases. Also, the decline finally leveled-off in 2014, which comes not very long after an increase to the top marginal tax rate in 2013.



Prime-age Male Labor Force Participation Has Been Declining For Over Half A Century



Brookings states



The share of prime-age men in the labor force has declined from its peak of 98 percent in 1954 to 88 percent today, reports the Council of Economic Advisers. This precipitous decline was largely masked as women entered the workforce in record numbers up until the 1990s, when their participation rate began to stagnate and eventually decline as well


Technology Has Reduced The Need For Labor



The CEA leans more on the demand side, suggesting that trade and technology have reduced demand for less-skilled labor, principally in the manufacturing sector.


Early 2000's Recession



The start of the labor participation decline coincides with an early 2000's recession that was caused not by labor participation or welfare, but a dotcom bubble burst.



The burst of the stock market bubble occurred in the form of the NASDAQ crash in March 2000. Growth in gross domestic product slowed considerably in the third quarter of 2000 to the lowest rate since a contraction in the first quarter of 1992.


The Great Recession



There is a noticeable, steeper decline in labor participation starting in 2008. This drop also strongly correlates with a recession, not taxes and benefits. In this case, it is the Great Recession, which was caused by a collapse in the housing and financial sectors due to poor banking regulation, credit default swaps, sub-prime lending, mortgage-backed securities, high private debt, and a housing bubble burst.



Confusing Cause and Effect



The OP is also confusing the mechanisms of cause and effect. When people become jobless, they turn to social programs to supplement their income; i.e. joblessness is the cause and social programs are the effect. "Receiving some form of government benefit" does not cause people to be jobless, as most of these benefits are a small fraction of the income needed for survival, and are often drawn by working people 1.



But the reality is, many people (44 percent) who rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as food stamps is now known — have at least one person in the family working


SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to find a job within three months and to work at least 20 hours a week or lose their benefits


Reemployment insurance is another government benefit that people don't draw on until they've lost their job. Again, job loss is the cause, and depending on government assistance is the effect.

Since supplemental income programs like SNAP and HUD can be utilized by low-income working Americans, a real way to reduce the utilization of these programs is to increase the number of good-paying jobs, and ensure that corporations are properly compensating their employees instead of pocketing the vast bulk of their profits.



How To Increase Labor Participation and Reduce Dependence On Government Assistance



Raise taxes on the wealthy and highly profitable corporations. Spend more federal money on things that stimulate consumer spending, create public and private sector jobs, and increase wages for workers. Consumer spending directly creates more private sector jobs; and if you put more money into the hands of the lower and middle class, consumer spending spikes.




  • More civil service jobs.

  • More infrastructure construction jobs.

  • Guaranteed income / tax stimulus.

  • Higher minimum wage.

  • 35-hour work week.

  • Clean energy subsidies.

  • Partial student loan forgiveness.

  • Stronger unions. (Average wages for private union workers is about $3.50/hour higher than average wages for private non-union workers 1.)


What Prevents The OP's Predicted Behavior?

Any social program that provides small supplemental income without a test on employment prevents this behavior. For example, if I have the choice of a) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and earning a $25,000/year income or b) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and NOT working; I'm going to choose option A, and so would everyone else, because it's easier to live on $27,500 than $2,500. The idea that benefits could discourage employment only applies when the benefit amount approaches a standard income and when the benefit is only given when you are unemployed. The vast majority of social programs (SNAP, LIHEAP, CHIP, Medicaid) only provide relatively small benefits (i.e. $126/month for SNAP), and are more concerned with your income than your employment status. Survival is more practical if a person continues working a job while they collect these means-tested benefits. Reemployment Assistance only pays a few hundred dollars a month, which is not enough to discourage most anyone from obtaining a $1,500/month job. Only a few benefit programs both provide enough income to live on and test your employment status -- social security retirement and disability.



This quote is also related to the question of whether benefit recipients really are voting into office the party that approves the benefits; and I think it does a good job of conclusively demonstrating that government benefits are not buying the favor of voters.




In 2012, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that 47 percent of the population would vote Democrat no matter what. He claimed it was because they receive some type of federal assistance. Many people believe this myth. But the research shows that welfare and food stamp recipients don't vote much. They are so low income that they are too busy surviving to go to the polls.



In fact, the states that rely the most on federal benefits vote Republican. They often aren't aware of how dependent they are on tax credits, such as the interest deduction for home mortgage interest. They only consider visible federal benefits, such as welfare checks or food stamps. As a result, they don't think the government has done much for them personally.







share|improve this answer





















  • 11





    Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

    – Hobbamok
    15 hours ago






  • 3





    While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

    – vsz
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

    – JonathanReez
    12 hours ago






  • 2





    "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    12 hours ago






  • 1





    @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

    – Hobbamok
    11 hours ago



















7














Generally, most developing countries that overspend (on welfare or something else) end up with a sovereign debt crisis. For the small fish, this usually ends up with the IMF giving a bailout conditional on cutting back on those programs. It's a bit of an open question (IMHO) whether [economically] big countries can escape this by quantitative easing.



That probably has a psychological/learning component with respect to the voters.
For instance, Greece was (more or less distortedly) used as a scarecrow in quite a few Eastern and Southern European countries in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in order to convince the voters to accept (more) austerity.



And it seems that France (rather than a smaller EU state) is regularly used as the equivalent scarecrow in US political or even journalistic discourse (more often on the right of the spectrum, of course). Some quick examples I found in articles by Hoover Institution, CATO, or even CNN; quoting from the latter:




The percentage of GDP that the government spends on social programs and welfare is much higher in France than other major economies.
The generous welfare system has led to higher budget deficits, however, and the French healthcare system is in desperate need of more cash. The IMF has called for economic reforms to bring public spending under control.




It would be interesting to know how effective this kind of discourse actually is in terms of changing voter preferences, but I haven't found a quantitative evaluation of that. There's no shortage of theories in this area though, e.g...




Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes so reluctant to support welfare policy? And why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support welfare policy? This article seeks to give an institutional account of these cross-national differences. Previous attempts to link institutions and welfare attitudes have not been convincing. The empirical studies have had large difficulties in finding the expected effects from regime-dependent differences in self-interest, class interest, and egalitarian values. This article develops a new theoretical macro—micro link by combining the literature on deservingness criteria and the welfare regime theory. The basic ideas are that three regime characteristics, (a) the degree of universalism in welfare policy, (b) the differences in economic resources between “the bottom” and “the majority,” and (c) the degree of job opportunities, have a profound impact on the public deservingness discussion and thereby on public support for welfare policy.




Finally a bit of more relevant empirical work:




To what extent do personal circumstances, as compared to ideological dispositions, drive voters’
preferences on welfare policy? Addressing this question is difficult because a person’s ideological
position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences.
The article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years,
tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of Americans
before and after the eruption of the financial crisis. The analysis shows that the personal experience of
economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare
spending. This effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats,
a result that
was not simply due to a “ceiling effect.” However the large attitudinal shift was short lived, dissipating
as individuals’ employment situations improved.
The results indicate that the personal experience of an
economic shock has a sizable, yet overall transient effect on voters’ social policy preference




So if this true in general, it seems that attitudes toward welfare are somehow deeply ingrained. In other words, there's no observed snowballing effect on pro-welfare attitudes, at least in the short-medium run. An interesting remaining issue is how much culture or education contribute to the deep-seated attitude toward welfare.






share|improve this answer

































    3














    But the tax increases haven't materialized. Just compare the top marginal tax rate now to the one in the 50s and 60s. One could argue that lower taxes lead to higher reliance on government assistance.






    share|improve this answer








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    • 2





      The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

      – Fizz
      18 hours ago













    • They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

      – Joe
      14 hours ago






    • 1





      This is a comment rather than a comment.

      – Alexei
      14 hours ago






    • 1





      This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

      – Jared Smith
      13 hours ago



















    1














    There are so many false assumptions in this question:




    • 1: People don't vote in their own interest. Most people don't really understand politics, they just vote because they think some guy seems to be doing something they think is good. I read once a study claiming that nearly 80% of the Germans vote against their interest.

    • 2: People want to work. They want to do something with their life. If you ask unemployed people ind welfare states, most of them wish to work. There is simply no suitable work available for them.

    • 3: Better welfare does not lead to less employment or less will to work. Welfare does not cause people to get lazy, but will cause them to create/work stuff they enjoy and they're good at. Low labour participation leads to higher welfare costs, but better welfare doesn't lead to low labour participation.



    Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?




    So to answer this question: No. There isn't anything necessary to prevent this scenario as it bases on wrong assumptions.






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      4 Answers
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      4 Answers
      4






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      20














      Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context



      The labor force hit an absolute peak in the 90's. See the same statistic plotted on a much longer timeline:



      enter image description here



      The current labor force participation rate is several percentage points higher than at anytime prior to 1978. The labor participation boom of the 90's was probably due to some perfect storm of Clinton-era prosperity, women hitting the workplace, and generations being at just the right spot where 3 generations (greatest generation, boomers, generation X) are all working jobs.



      Declining Labor Participation Rates Are Not Correlating With Tax Increases



      You see the labor participation rate begin to decline steadily since 2001; now is that because George Bush raised tax rates and expanded the welfare state (no)? Or is it because the economy slowed down (yes)? In fact, while the labor participation rate was beginning to decline in 2001, the top marginal tax rate was not raised, George W Bush cut it three times during that decline, which contradicts the OP's thesis that these participation rate declines correlate with tax increases. Also, the decline finally leveled-off in 2014, which comes not very long after an increase to the top marginal tax rate in 2013.



      Prime-age Male Labor Force Participation Has Been Declining For Over Half A Century



      Brookings states



      The share of prime-age men in the labor force has declined from its peak of 98 percent in 1954 to 88 percent today, reports the Council of Economic Advisers. This precipitous decline was largely masked as women entered the workforce in record numbers up until the 1990s, when their participation rate began to stagnate and eventually decline as well


      Technology Has Reduced The Need For Labor



      The CEA leans more on the demand side, suggesting that trade and technology have reduced demand for less-skilled labor, principally in the manufacturing sector.


      Early 2000's Recession



      The start of the labor participation decline coincides with an early 2000's recession that was caused not by labor participation or welfare, but a dotcom bubble burst.



      The burst of the stock market bubble occurred in the form of the NASDAQ crash in March 2000. Growth in gross domestic product slowed considerably in the third quarter of 2000 to the lowest rate since a contraction in the first quarter of 1992.


      The Great Recession



      There is a noticeable, steeper decline in labor participation starting in 2008. This drop also strongly correlates with a recession, not taxes and benefits. In this case, it is the Great Recession, which was caused by a collapse in the housing and financial sectors due to poor banking regulation, credit default swaps, sub-prime lending, mortgage-backed securities, high private debt, and a housing bubble burst.



      Confusing Cause and Effect



      The OP is also confusing the mechanisms of cause and effect. When people become jobless, they turn to social programs to supplement their income; i.e. joblessness is the cause and social programs are the effect. "Receiving some form of government benefit" does not cause people to be jobless, as most of these benefits are a small fraction of the income needed for survival, and are often drawn by working people 1.



      But the reality is, many people (44 percent) who rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as food stamps is now known — have at least one person in the family working


      SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to find a job within three months and to work at least 20 hours a week or lose their benefits


      Reemployment insurance is another government benefit that people don't draw on until they've lost their job. Again, job loss is the cause, and depending on government assistance is the effect.

      Since supplemental income programs like SNAP and HUD can be utilized by low-income working Americans, a real way to reduce the utilization of these programs is to increase the number of good-paying jobs, and ensure that corporations are properly compensating their employees instead of pocketing the vast bulk of their profits.



      How To Increase Labor Participation and Reduce Dependence On Government Assistance



      Raise taxes on the wealthy and highly profitable corporations. Spend more federal money on things that stimulate consumer spending, create public and private sector jobs, and increase wages for workers. Consumer spending directly creates more private sector jobs; and if you put more money into the hands of the lower and middle class, consumer spending spikes.




      • More civil service jobs.

      • More infrastructure construction jobs.

      • Guaranteed income / tax stimulus.

      • Higher minimum wage.

      • 35-hour work week.

      • Clean energy subsidies.

      • Partial student loan forgiveness.

      • Stronger unions. (Average wages for private union workers is about $3.50/hour higher than average wages for private non-union workers 1.)


      What Prevents The OP's Predicted Behavior?

      Any social program that provides small supplemental income without a test on employment prevents this behavior. For example, if I have the choice of a) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and earning a $25,000/year income or b) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and NOT working; I'm going to choose option A, and so would everyone else, because it's easier to live on $27,500 than $2,500. The idea that benefits could discourage employment only applies when the benefit amount approaches a standard income and when the benefit is only given when you are unemployed. The vast majority of social programs (SNAP, LIHEAP, CHIP, Medicaid) only provide relatively small benefits (i.e. $126/month for SNAP), and are more concerned with your income than your employment status. Survival is more practical if a person continues working a job while they collect these means-tested benefits. Reemployment Assistance only pays a few hundred dollars a month, which is not enough to discourage most anyone from obtaining a $1,500/month job. Only a few benefit programs both provide enough income to live on and test your employment status -- social security retirement and disability.



      This quote is also related to the question of whether benefit recipients really are voting into office the party that approves the benefits; and I think it does a good job of conclusively demonstrating that government benefits are not buying the favor of voters.




      In 2012, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that 47 percent of the population would vote Democrat no matter what. He claimed it was because they receive some type of federal assistance. Many people believe this myth. But the research shows that welfare and food stamp recipients don't vote much. They are so low income that they are too busy surviving to go to the polls.



      In fact, the states that rely the most on federal benefits vote Republican. They often aren't aware of how dependent they are on tax credits, such as the interest deduction for home mortgage interest. They only consider visible federal benefits, such as welfare checks or food stamps. As a result, they don't think the government has done much for them personally.







      share|improve this answer





















      • 11





        Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

        – Hobbamok
        15 hours ago






      • 3





        While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

        – vsz
        14 hours ago






      • 1





        @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

        – JonathanReez
        12 hours ago






      • 2





        "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

        – Denis de Bernardy
        12 hours ago






      • 1





        @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

        – Hobbamok
        11 hours ago
















      20














      Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context



      The labor force hit an absolute peak in the 90's. See the same statistic plotted on a much longer timeline:



      enter image description here



      The current labor force participation rate is several percentage points higher than at anytime prior to 1978. The labor participation boom of the 90's was probably due to some perfect storm of Clinton-era prosperity, women hitting the workplace, and generations being at just the right spot where 3 generations (greatest generation, boomers, generation X) are all working jobs.



      Declining Labor Participation Rates Are Not Correlating With Tax Increases



      You see the labor participation rate begin to decline steadily since 2001; now is that because George Bush raised tax rates and expanded the welfare state (no)? Or is it because the economy slowed down (yes)? In fact, while the labor participation rate was beginning to decline in 2001, the top marginal tax rate was not raised, George W Bush cut it three times during that decline, which contradicts the OP's thesis that these participation rate declines correlate with tax increases. Also, the decline finally leveled-off in 2014, which comes not very long after an increase to the top marginal tax rate in 2013.



      Prime-age Male Labor Force Participation Has Been Declining For Over Half A Century



      Brookings states



      The share of prime-age men in the labor force has declined from its peak of 98 percent in 1954 to 88 percent today, reports the Council of Economic Advisers. This precipitous decline was largely masked as women entered the workforce in record numbers up until the 1990s, when their participation rate began to stagnate and eventually decline as well


      Technology Has Reduced The Need For Labor



      The CEA leans more on the demand side, suggesting that trade and technology have reduced demand for less-skilled labor, principally in the manufacturing sector.


      Early 2000's Recession



      The start of the labor participation decline coincides with an early 2000's recession that was caused not by labor participation or welfare, but a dotcom bubble burst.



      The burst of the stock market bubble occurred in the form of the NASDAQ crash in March 2000. Growth in gross domestic product slowed considerably in the third quarter of 2000 to the lowest rate since a contraction in the first quarter of 1992.


      The Great Recession



      There is a noticeable, steeper decline in labor participation starting in 2008. This drop also strongly correlates with a recession, not taxes and benefits. In this case, it is the Great Recession, which was caused by a collapse in the housing and financial sectors due to poor banking regulation, credit default swaps, sub-prime lending, mortgage-backed securities, high private debt, and a housing bubble burst.



      Confusing Cause and Effect



      The OP is also confusing the mechanisms of cause and effect. When people become jobless, they turn to social programs to supplement their income; i.e. joblessness is the cause and social programs are the effect. "Receiving some form of government benefit" does not cause people to be jobless, as most of these benefits are a small fraction of the income needed for survival, and are often drawn by working people 1.



      But the reality is, many people (44 percent) who rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as food stamps is now known — have at least one person in the family working


      SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to find a job within three months and to work at least 20 hours a week or lose their benefits


      Reemployment insurance is another government benefit that people don't draw on until they've lost their job. Again, job loss is the cause, and depending on government assistance is the effect.

      Since supplemental income programs like SNAP and HUD can be utilized by low-income working Americans, a real way to reduce the utilization of these programs is to increase the number of good-paying jobs, and ensure that corporations are properly compensating their employees instead of pocketing the vast bulk of their profits.



      How To Increase Labor Participation and Reduce Dependence On Government Assistance



      Raise taxes on the wealthy and highly profitable corporations. Spend more federal money on things that stimulate consumer spending, create public and private sector jobs, and increase wages for workers. Consumer spending directly creates more private sector jobs; and if you put more money into the hands of the lower and middle class, consumer spending spikes.




      • More civil service jobs.

      • More infrastructure construction jobs.

      • Guaranteed income / tax stimulus.

      • Higher minimum wage.

      • 35-hour work week.

      • Clean energy subsidies.

      • Partial student loan forgiveness.

      • Stronger unions. (Average wages for private union workers is about $3.50/hour higher than average wages for private non-union workers 1.)


      What Prevents The OP's Predicted Behavior?

      Any social program that provides small supplemental income without a test on employment prevents this behavior. For example, if I have the choice of a) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and earning a $25,000/year income or b) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and NOT working; I'm going to choose option A, and so would everyone else, because it's easier to live on $27,500 than $2,500. The idea that benefits could discourage employment only applies when the benefit amount approaches a standard income and when the benefit is only given when you are unemployed. The vast majority of social programs (SNAP, LIHEAP, CHIP, Medicaid) only provide relatively small benefits (i.e. $126/month for SNAP), and are more concerned with your income than your employment status. Survival is more practical if a person continues working a job while they collect these means-tested benefits. Reemployment Assistance only pays a few hundred dollars a month, which is not enough to discourage most anyone from obtaining a $1,500/month job. Only a few benefit programs both provide enough income to live on and test your employment status -- social security retirement and disability.



      This quote is also related to the question of whether benefit recipients really are voting into office the party that approves the benefits; and I think it does a good job of conclusively demonstrating that government benefits are not buying the favor of voters.




      In 2012, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that 47 percent of the population would vote Democrat no matter what. He claimed it was because they receive some type of federal assistance. Many people believe this myth. But the research shows that welfare and food stamp recipients don't vote much. They are so low income that they are too busy surviving to go to the polls.



      In fact, the states that rely the most on federal benefits vote Republican. They often aren't aware of how dependent they are on tax credits, such as the interest deduction for home mortgage interest. They only consider visible federal benefits, such as welfare checks or food stamps. As a result, they don't think the government has done much for them personally.







      share|improve this answer





















      • 11





        Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

        – Hobbamok
        15 hours ago






      • 3





        While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

        – vsz
        14 hours ago






      • 1





        @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

        – JonathanReez
        12 hours ago






      • 2





        "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

        – Denis de Bernardy
        12 hours ago






      • 1





        @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

        – Hobbamok
        11 hours ago














      20












      20








      20







      Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context



      The labor force hit an absolute peak in the 90's. See the same statistic plotted on a much longer timeline:



      enter image description here



      The current labor force participation rate is several percentage points higher than at anytime prior to 1978. The labor participation boom of the 90's was probably due to some perfect storm of Clinton-era prosperity, women hitting the workplace, and generations being at just the right spot where 3 generations (greatest generation, boomers, generation X) are all working jobs.



      Declining Labor Participation Rates Are Not Correlating With Tax Increases



      You see the labor participation rate begin to decline steadily since 2001; now is that because George Bush raised tax rates and expanded the welfare state (no)? Or is it because the economy slowed down (yes)? In fact, while the labor participation rate was beginning to decline in 2001, the top marginal tax rate was not raised, George W Bush cut it three times during that decline, which contradicts the OP's thesis that these participation rate declines correlate with tax increases. Also, the decline finally leveled-off in 2014, which comes not very long after an increase to the top marginal tax rate in 2013.



      Prime-age Male Labor Force Participation Has Been Declining For Over Half A Century



      Brookings states



      The share of prime-age men in the labor force has declined from its peak of 98 percent in 1954 to 88 percent today, reports the Council of Economic Advisers. This precipitous decline was largely masked as women entered the workforce in record numbers up until the 1990s, when their participation rate began to stagnate and eventually decline as well


      Technology Has Reduced The Need For Labor



      The CEA leans more on the demand side, suggesting that trade and technology have reduced demand for less-skilled labor, principally in the manufacturing sector.


      Early 2000's Recession



      The start of the labor participation decline coincides with an early 2000's recession that was caused not by labor participation or welfare, but a dotcom bubble burst.



      The burst of the stock market bubble occurred in the form of the NASDAQ crash in March 2000. Growth in gross domestic product slowed considerably in the third quarter of 2000 to the lowest rate since a contraction in the first quarter of 1992.


      The Great Recession



      There is a noticeable, steeper decline in labor participation starting in 2008. This drop also strongly correlates with a recession, not taxes and benefits. In this case, it is the Great Recession, which was caused by a collapse in the housing and financial sectors due to poor banking regulation, credit default swaps, sub-prime lending, mortgage-backed securities, high private debt, and a housing bubble burst.



      Confusing Cause and Effect



      The OP is also confusing the mechanisms of cause and effect. When people become jobless, they turn to social programs to supplement their income; i.e. joblessness is the cause and social programs are the effect. "Receiving some form of government benefit" does not cause people to be jobless, as most of these benefits are a small fraction of the income needed for survival, and are often drawn by working people 1.



      But the reality is, many people (44 percent) who rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as food stamps is now known — have at least one person in the family working


      SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to find a job within three months and to work at least 20 hours a week or lose their benefits


      Reemployment insurance is another government benefit that people don't draw on until they've lost their job. Again, job loss is the cause, and depending on government assistance is the effect.

      Since supplemental income programs like SNAP and HUD can be utilized by low-income working Americans, a real way to reduce the utilization of these programs is to increase the number of good-paying jobs, and ensure that corporations are properly compensating their employees instead of pocketing the vast bulk of their profits.



      How To Increase Labor Participation and Reduce Dependence On Government Assistance



      Raise taxes on the wealthy and highly profitable corporations. Spend more federal money on things that stimulate consumer spending, create public and private sector jobs, and increase wages for workers. Consumer spending directly creates more private sector jobs; and if you put more money into the hands of the lower and middle class, consumer spending spikes.




      • More civil service jobs.

      • More infrastructure construction jobs.

      • Guaranteed income / tax stimulus.

      • Higher minimum wage.

      • 35-hour work week.

      • Clean energy subsidies.

      • Partial student loan forgiveness.

      • Stronger unions. (Average wages for private union workers is about $3.50/hour higher than average wages for private non-union workers 1.)


      What Prevents The OP's Predicted Behavior?

      Any social program that provides small supplemental income without a test on employment prevents this behavior. For example, if I have the choice of a) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and earning a $25,000/year income or b) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and NOT working; I'm going to choose option A, and so would everyone else, because it's easier to live on $27,500 than $2,500. The idea that benefits could discourage employment only applies when the benefit amount approaches a standard income and when the benefit is only given when you are unemployed. The vast majority of social programs (SNAP, LIHEAP, CHIP, Medicaid) only provide relatively small benefits (i.e. $126/month for SNAP), and are more concerned with your income than your employment status. Survival is more practical if a person continues working a job while they collect these means-tested benefits. Reemployment Assistance only pays a few hundred dollars a month, which is not enough to discourage most anyone from obtaining a $1,500/month job. Only a few benefit programs both provide enough income to live on and test your employment status -- social security retirement and disability.



      This quote is also related to the question of whether benefit recipients really are voting into office the party that approves the benefits; and I think it does a good job of conclusively demonstrating that government benefits are not buying the favor of voters.




      In 2012, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that 47 percent of the population would vote Democrat no matter what. He claimed it was because they receive some type of federal assistance. Many people believe this myth. But the research shows that welfare and food stamp recipients don't vote much. They are so low income that they are too busy surviving to go to the polls.



      In fact, the states that rely the most on federal benefits vote Republican. They often aren't aware of how dependent they are on tax credits, such as the interest deduction for home mortgage interest. They only consider visible federal benefits, such as welfare checks or food stamps. As a result, they don't think the government has done much for them personally.







      share|improve this answer















      Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context



      The labor force hit an absolute peak in the 90's. See the same statistic plotted on a much longer timeline:



      enter image description here



      The current labor force participation rate is several percentage points higher than at anytime prior to 1978. The labor participation boom of the 90's was probably due to some perfect storm of Clinton-era prosperity, women hitting the workplace, and generations being at just the right spot where 3 generations (greatest generation, boomers, generation X) are all working jobs.



      Declining Labor Participation Rates Are Not Correlating With Tax Increases



      You see the labor participation rate begin to decline steadily since 2001; now is that because George Bush raised tax rates and expanded the welfare state (no)? Or is it because the economy slowed down (yes)? In fact, while the labor participation rate was beginning to decline in 2001, the top marginal tax rate was not raised, George W Bush cut it three times during that decline, which contradicts the OP's thesis that these participation rate declines correlate with tax increases. Also, the decline finally leveled-off in 2014, which comes not very long after an increase to the top marginal tax rate in 2013.



      Prime-age Male Labor Force Participation Has Been Declining For Over Half A Century



      Brookings states



      The share of prime-age men in the labor force has declined from its peak of 98 percent in 1954 to 88 percent today, reports the Council of Economic Advisers. This precipitous decline was largely masked as women entered the workforce in record numbers up until the 1990s, when their participation rate began to stagnate and eventually decline as well


      Technology Has Reduced The Need For Labor



      The CEA leans more on the demand side, suggesting that trade and technology have reduced demand for less-skilled labor, principally in the manufacturing sector.


      Early 2000's Recession



      The start of the labor participation decline coincides with an early 2000's recession that was caused not by labor participation or welfare, but a dotcom bubble burst.



      The burst of the stock market bubble occurred in the form of the NASDAQ crash in March 2000. Growth in gross domestic product slowed considerably in the third quarter of 2000 to the lowest rate since a contraction in the first quarter of 1992.


      The Great Recession



      There is a noticeable, steeper decline in labor participation starting in 2008. This drop also strongly correlates with a recession, not taxes and benefits. In this case, it is the Great Recession, which was caused by a collapse in the housing and financial sectors due to poor banking regulation, credit default swaps, sub-prime lending, mortgage-backed securities, high private debt, and a housing bubble burst.



      Confusing Cause and Effect



      The OP is also confusing the mechanisms of cause and effect. When people become jobless, they turn to social programs to supplement their income; i.e. joblessness is the cause and social programs are the effect. "Receiving some form of government benefit" does not cause people to be jobless, as most of these benefits are a small fraction of the income needed for survival, and are often drawn by working people 1.



      But the reality is, many people (44 percent) who rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as food stamps is now known — have at least one person in the family working


      SNAP already requires able-bodied adults without children to find a job within three months and to work at least 20 hours a week or lose their benefits


      Reemployment insurance is another government benefit that people don't draw on until they've lost their job. Again, job loss is the cause, and depending on government assistance is the effect.

      Since supplemental income programs like SNAP and HUD can be utilized by low-income working Americans, a real way to reduce the utilization of these programs is to increase the number of good-paying jobs, and ensure that corporations are properly compensating their employees instead of pocketing the vast bulk of their profits.



      How To Increase Labor Participation and Reduce Dependence On Government Assistance



      Raise taxes on the wealthy and highly profitable corporations. Spend more federal money on things that stimulate consumer spending, create public and private sector jobs, and increase wages for workers. Consumer spending directly creates more private sector jobs; and if you put more money into the hands of the lower and middle class, consumer spending spikes.




      • More civil service jobs.

      • More infrastructure construction jobs.

      • Guaranteed income / tax stimulus.

      • Higher minimum wage.

      • 35-hour work week.

      • Clean energy subsidies.

      • Partial student loan forgiveness.

      • Stronger unions. (Average wages for private union workers is about $3.50/hour higher than average wages for private non-union workers 1.)


      What Prevents The OP's Predicted Behavior?

      Any social program that provides small supplemental income without a test on employment prevents this behavior. For example, if I have the choice of a) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and earning a $25,000/year income or b) drawing a $2,500/year benefit and NOT working; I'm going to choose option A, and so would everyone else, because it's easier to live on $27,500 than $2,500. The idea that benefits could discourage employment only applies when the benefit amount approaches a standard income and when the benefit is only given when you are unemployed. The vast majority of social programs (SNAP, LIHEAP, CHIP, Medicaid) only provide relatively small benefits (i.e. $126/month for SNAP), and are more concerned with your income than your employment status. Survival is more practical if a person continues working a job while they collect these means-tested benefits. Reemployment Assistance only pays a few hundred dollars a month, which is not enough to discourage most anyone from obtaining a $1,500/month job. Only a few benefit programs both provide enough income to live on and test your employment status -- social security retirement and disability.



      This quote is also related to the question of whether benefit recipients really are voting into office the party that approves the benefits; and I think it does a good job of conclusively demonstrating that government benefits are not buying the favor of voters.




      In 2012, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that 47 percent of the population would vote Democrat no matter what. He claimed it was because they receive some type of federal assistance. Many people believe this myth. But the research shows that welfare and food stamp recipients don't vote much. They are so low income that they are too busy surviving to go to the polls.



      In fact, the states that rely the most on federal benefits vote Republican. They often aren't aware of how dependent they are on tax credits, such as the interest deduction for home mortgage interest. They only consider visible federal benefits, such as welfare checks or food stamps. As a result, they don't think the government has done much for them personally.








      share|improve this answer














      share|improve this answer



      share|improve this answer








      edited 8 hours ago

























      answered 18 hours ago









      JohnJohn

      3,5191623




      3,5191623








      • 11





        Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

        – Hobbamok
        15 hours ago






      • 3





        While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

        – vsz
        14 hours ago






      • 1





        @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

        – JonathanReez
        12 hours ago






      • 2





        "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

        – Denis de Bernardy
        12 hours ago






      • 1





        @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

        – Hobbamok
        11 hours ago














      • 11





        Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

        – Hobbamok
        15 hours ago






      • 3





        While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

        – vsz
        14 hours ago






      • 1





        @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

        – JonathanReez
        12 hours ago






      • 2





        "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

        – Denis de Bernardy
        12 hours ago






      • 1





        @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

        – Hobbamok
        11 hours ago








      11




      11





      Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

      – Hobbamok
      15 hours ago





      Also OP is misreading the lower chart with "% of citizens receiving some benefits". SOME! That means if you're in a city where you get 50% tax credit for a bus ticket bc they wanna reduce trafic you're in that statistic. This bloats it way beyond belief, because OP souds like he believes that almost 50% of citizens LIVE OFF of welfare, while that is definitely not the case

      – Hobbamok
      15 hours ago




      3




      3





      While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

      – vsz
      14 hours ago





      While very informative, this doesn't answer the question. The question was what prevents a larger and larger portion of the population from voting a populist party which promises more and more welfare in a vicious cycle: as the welfare increases and the requirements for getting it become more lax, more people decide to use it instead of working, therefore further increasing the voter base of welfare-promising parties who are incentivized to increase welfare spending and reduce the bar to become eligible for welfare.

      – vsz
      14 hours ago




      1




      1





      @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

      – JonathanReez
      12 hours ago





      @vsz +1, it does not answer my question

      – JonathanReez
      12 hours ago




      2




      2





      "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

      – Denis de Bernardy
      12 hours ago





      "Current Labor Participation Rates Are Not That Low In A Broader Context" is only correct if you also hold that women shouldn't be participating. The chart you show demonstrates, if anything, that the participation rate in 2019, with both sexes trying to find work, dropped to the level it was in the 20th century when mostly males were doing so.

      – Denis de Bernardy
      12 hours ago




      1




      1





      @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

      – Hobbamok
      11 hours ago





      @JonathanReez so MAYYYYYBE you are completely mislead here, stemming from your strong anti-government bias (which is absolutely obvious by how you phrase your question, suggesting that it would be inevietable that a country runs towards unlimited welfare, what a joke)

      – Hobbamok
      11 hours ago











      7














      Generally, most developing countries that overspend (on welfare or something else) end up with a sovereign debt crisis. For the small fish, this usually ends up with the IMF giving a bailout conditional on cutting back on those programs. It's a bit of an open question (IMHO) whether [economically] big countries can escape this by quantitative easing.



      That probably has a psychological/learning component with respect to the voters.
      For instance, Greece was (more or less distortedly) used as a scarecrow in quite a few Eastern and Southern European countries in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in order to convince the voters to accept (more) austerity.



      And it seems that France (rather than a smaller EU state) is regularly used as the equivalent scarecrow in US political or even journalistic discourse (more often on the right of the spectrum, of course). Some quick examples I found in articles by Hoover Institution, CATO, or even CNN; quoting from the latter:




      The percentage of GDP that the government spends on social programs and welfare is much higher in France than other major economies.
      The generous welfare system has led to higher budget deficits, however, and the French healthcare system is in desperate need of more cash. The IMF has called for economic reforms to bring public spending under control.




      It would be interesting to know how effective this kind of discourse actually is in terms of changing voter preferences, but I haven't found a quantitative evaluation of that. There's no shortage of theories in this area though, e.g...




      Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes so reluctant to support welfare policy? And why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support welfare policy? This article seeks to give an institutional account of these cross-national differences. Previous attempts to link institutions and welfare attitudes have not been convincing. The empirical studies have had large difficulties in finding the expected effects from regime-dependent differences in self-interest, class interest, and egalitarian values. This article develops a new theoretical macro—micro link by combining the literature on deservingness criteria and the welfare regime theory. The basic ideas are that three regime characteristics, (a) the degree of universalism in welfare policy, (b) the differences in economic resources between “the bottom” and “the majority,” and (c) the degree of job opportunities, have a profound impact on the public deservingness discussion and thereby on public support for welfare policy.




      Finally a bit of more relevant empirical work:




      To what extent do personal circumstances, as compared to ideological dispositions, drive voters’
      preferences on welfare policy? Addressing this question is difficult because a person’s ideological
      position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences.
      The article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years,
      tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of Americans
      before and after the eruption of the financial crisis. The analysis shows that the personal experience of
      economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare
      spending. This effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats,
      a result that
      was not simply due to a “ceiling effect.” However the large attitudinal shift was short lived, dissipating
      as individuals’ employment situations improved.
      The results indicate that the personal experience of an
      economic shock has a sizable, yet overall transient effect on voters’ social policy preference




      So if this true in general, it seems that attitudes toward welfare are somehow deeply ingrained. In other words, there's no observed snowballing effect on pro-welfare attitudes, at least in the short-medium run. An interesting remaining issue is how much culture or education contribute to the deep-seated attitude toward welfare.






      share|improve this answer






























        7














        Generally, most developing countries that overspend (on welfare or something else) end up with a sovereign debt crisis. For the small fish, this usually ends up with the IMF giving a bailout conditional on cutting back on those programs. It's a bit of an open question (IMHO) whether [economically] big countries can escape this by quantitative easing.



        That probably has a psychological/learning component with respect to the voters.
        For instance, Greece was (more or less distortedly) used as a scarecrow in quite a few Eastern and Southern European countries in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in order to convince the voters to accept (more) austerity.



        And it seems that France (rather than a smaller EU state) is regularly used as the equivalent scarecrow in US political or even journalistic discourse (more often on the right of the spectrum, of course). Some quick examples I found in articles by Hoover Institution, CATO, or even CNN; quoting from the latter:




        The percentage of GDP that the government spends on social programs and welfare is much higher in France than other major economies.
        The generous welfare system has led to higher budget deficits, however, and the French healthcare system is in desperate need of more cash. The IMF has called for economic reforms to bring public spending under control.




        It would be interesting to know how effective this kind of discourse actually is in terms of changing voter preferences, but I haven't found a quantitative evaluation of that. There's no shortage of theories in this area though, e.g...




        Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes so reluctant to support welfare policy? And why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support welfare policy? This article seeks to give an institutional account of these cross-national differences. Previous attempts to link institutions and welfare attitudes have not been convincing. The empirical studies have had large difficulties in finding the expected effects from regime-dependent differences in self-interest, class interest, and egalitarian values. This article develops a new theoretical macro—micro link by combining the literature on deservingness criteria and the welfare regime theory. The basic ideas are that three regime characteristics, (a) the degree of universalism in welfare policy, (b) the differences in economic resources between “the bottom” and “the majority,” and (c) the degree of job opportunities, have a profound impact on the public deservingness discussion and thereby on public support for welfare policy.




        Finally a bit of more relevant empirical work:




        To what extent do personal circumstances, as compared to ideological dispositions, drive voters’
        preferences on welfare policy? Addressing this question is difficult because a person’s ideological
        position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences.
        The article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years,
        tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of Americans
        before and after the eruption of the financial crisis. The analysis shows that the personal experience of
        economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare
        spending. This effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats,
        a result that
        was not simply due to a “ceiling effect.” However the large attitudinal shift was short lived, dissipating
        as individuals’ employment situations improved.
        The results indicate that the personal experience of an
        economic shock has a sizable, yet overall transient effect on voters’ social policy preference




        So if this true in general, it seems that attitudes toward welfare are somehow deeply ingrained. In other words, there's no observed snowballing effect on pro-welfare attitudes, at least in the short-medium run. An interesting remaining issue is how much culture or education contribute to the deep-seated attitude toward welfare.






        share|improve this answer




























          7












          7








          7







          Generally, most developing countries that overspend (on welfare or something else) end up with a sovereign debt crisis. For the small fish, this usually ends up with the IMF giving a bailout conditional on cutting back on those programs. It's a bit of an open question (IMHO) whether [economically] big countries can escape this by quantitative easing.



          That probably has a psychological/learning component with respect to the voters.
          For instance, Greece was (more or less distortedly) used as a scarecrow in quite a few Eastern and Southern European countries in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in order to convince the voters to accept (more) austerity.



          And it seems that France (rather than a smaller EU state) is regularly used as the equivalent scarecrow in US political or even journalistic discourse (more often on the right of the spectrum, of course). Some quick examples I found in articles by Hoover Institution, CATO, or even CNN; quoting from the latter:




          The percentage of GDP that the government spends on social programs and welfare is much higher in France than other major economies.
          The generous welfare system has led to higher budget deficits, however, and the French healthcare system is in desperate need of more cash. The IMF has called for economic reforms to bring public spending under control.




          It would be interesting to know how effective this kind of discourse actually is in terms of changing voter preferences, but I haven't found a quantitative evaluation of that. There's no shortage of theories in this area though, e.g...




          Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes so reluctant to support welfare policy? And why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support welfare policy? This article seeks to give an institutional account of these cross-national differences. Previous attempts to link institutions and welfare attitudes have not been convincing. The empirical studies have had large difficulties in finding the expected effects from regime-dependent differences in self-interest, class interest, and egalitarian values. This article develops a new theoretical macro—micro link by combining the literature on deservingness criteria and the welfare regime theory. The basic ideas are that three regime characteristics, (a) the degree of universalism in welfare policy, (b) the differences in economic resources between “the bottom” and “the majority,” and (c) the degree of job opportunities, have a profound impact on the public deservingness discussion and thereby on public support for welfare policy.




          Finally a bit of more relevant empirical work:




          To what extent do personal circumstances, as compared to ideological dispositions, drive voters’
          preferences on welfare policy? Addressing this question is difficult because a person’s ideological
          position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences.
          The article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years,
          tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of Americans
          before and after the eruption of the financial crisis. The analysis shows that the personal experience of
          economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare
          spending. This effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats,
          a result that
          was not simply due to a “ceiling effect.” However the large attitudinal shift was short lived, dissipating
          as individuals’ employment situations improved.
          The results indicate that the personal experience of an
          economic shock has a sizable, yet overall transient effect on voters’ social policy preference




          So if this true in general, it seems that attitudes toward welfare are somehow deeply ingrained. In other words, there's no observed snowballing effect on pro-welfare attitudes, at least in the short-medium run. An interesting remaining issue is how much culture or education contribute to the deep-seated attitude toward welfare.






          share|improve this answer















          Generally, most developing countries that overspend (on welfare or something else) end up with a sovereign debt crisis. For the small fish, this usually ends up with the IMF giving a bailout conditional on cutting back on those programs. It's a bit of an open question (IMHO) whether [economically] big countries can escape this by quantitative easing.



          That probably has a psychological/learning component with respect to the voters.
          For instance, Greece was (more or less distortedly) used as a scarecrow in quite a few Eastern and Southern European countries in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in order to convince the voters to accept (more) austerity.



          And it seems that France (rather than a smaller EU state) is regularly used as the equivalent scarecrow in US political or even journalistic discourse (more often on the right of the spectrum, of course). Some quick examples I found in articles by Hoover Institution, CATO, or even CNN; quoting from the latter:




          The percentage of GDP that the government spends on social programs and welfare is much higher in France than other major economies.
          The generous welfare system has led to higher budget deficits, however, and the French healthcare system is in desperate need of more cash. The IMF has called for economic reforms to bring public spending under control.




          It would be interesting to know how effective this kind of discourse actually is in terms of changing voter preferences, but I haven't found a quantitative evaluation of that. There's no shortage of theories in this area though, e.g...




          Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes so reluctant to support welfare policy? And why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support welfare policy? This article seeks to give an institutional account of these cross-national differences. Previous attempts to link institutions and welfare attitudes have not been convincing. The empirical studies have had large difficulties in finding the expected effects from regime-dependent differences in self-interest, class interest, and egalitarian values. This article develops a new theoretical macro—micro link by combining the literature on deservingness criteria and the welfare regime theory. The basic ideas are that three regime characteristics, (a) the degree of universalism in welfare policy, (b) the differences in economic resources between “the bottom” and “the majority,” and (c) the degree of job opportunities, have a profound impact on the public deservingness discussion and thereby on public support for welfare policy.




          Finally a bit of more relevant empirical work:




          To what extent do personal circumstances, as compared to ideological dispositions, drive voters’
          preferences on welfare policy? Addressing this question is difficult because a person’s ideological
          position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences.
          The article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years,
          tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of Americans
          before and after the eruption of the financial crisis. The analysis shows that the personal experience of
          economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare
          spending. This effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats,
          a result that
          was not simply due to a “ceiling effect.” However the large attitudinal shift was short lived, dissipating
          as individuals’ employment situations improved.
          The results indicate that the personal experience of an
          economic shock has a sizable, yet overall transient effect on voters’ social policy preference




          So if this true in general, it seems that attitudes toward welfare are somehow deeply ingrained. In other words, there's no observed snowballing effect on pro-welfare attitudes, at least in the short-medium run. An interesting remaining issue is how much culture or education contribute to the deep-seated attitude toward welfare.







          share|improve this answer














          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer








          edited 16 hours ago

























          answered 20 hours ago









          FizzFizz

          12k12977




          12k12977























              3














              But the tax increases haven't materialized. Just compare the top marginal tax rate now to the one in the 50s and 60s. One could argue that lower taxes lead to higher reliance on government assistance.






              share|improve this answer








              New contributor




              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.
















              • 2





                The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

                – Fizz
                18 hours ago













              • They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

                – Joe
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This is a comment rather than a comment.

                – Alexei
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

                – Jared Smith
                13 hours ago
















              3














              But the tax increases haven't materialized. Just compare the top marginal tax rate now to the one in the 50s and 60s. One could argue that lower taxes lead to higher reliance on government assistance.






              share|improve this answer








              New contributor




              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.
















              • 2





                The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

                – Fizz
                18 hours ago













              • They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

                – Joe
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This is a comment rather than a comment.

                – Alexei
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

                – Jared Smith
                13 hours ago














              3












              3








              3







              But the tax increases haven't materialized. Just compare the top marginal tax rate now to the one in the 50s and 60s. One could argue that lower taxes lead to higher reliance on government assistance.






              share|improve this answer








              New contributor




              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.










              But the tax increases haven't materialized. Just compare the top marginal tax rate now to the one in the 50s and 60s. One could argue that lower taxes lead to higher reliance on government assistance.







              share|improve this answer








              New contributor




              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.









              share|improve this answer



              share|improve this answer






              New contributor




              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.









              answered 20 hours ago









              user3208727user3208727

              1906




              1906




              New contributor




              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.





              New contributor





              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.






              user3208727 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.








              • 2





                The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

                – Fizz
                18 hours ago













              • They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

                – Joe
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This is a comment rather than a comment.

                – Alexei
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

                – Jared Smith
                13 hours ago














              • 2





                The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

                – Fizz
                18 hours ago













              • They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

                – Joe
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This is a comment rather than a comment.

                – Alexei
                14 hours ago






              • 1





                This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

                – Jared Smith
                13 hours ago








              2




              2





              The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

              – Fizz
              18 hours ago







              The Trump tax cut is basically financed by (sovereign) debt. This was fairly predictable.

              – Fizz
              18 hours ago















              They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

              – Joe
              14 hours ago





              They haven’t materialized yet. There are proposals to increase taxes and create new taxes that did not exist before for the specific purpose of providing more and new benefits to people.

              – Joe
              14 hours ago




              1




              1





              This is a comment rather than a comment.

              – Alexei
              14 hours ago





              This is a comment rather than a comment.

              – Alexei
              14 hours ago




              1




              1





              This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

              – Jared Smith
              13 hours ago





              This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

              – Jared Smith
              13 hours ago











              1














              There are so many false assumptions in this question:




              • 1: People don't vote in their own interest. Most people don't really understand politics, they just vote because they think some guy seems to be doing something they think is good. I read once a study claiming that nearly 80% of the Germans vote against their interest.

              • 2: People want to work. They want to do something with their life. If you ask unemployed people ind welfare states, most of them wish to work. There is simply no suitable work available for them.

              • 3: Better welfare does not lead to less employment or less will to work. Welfare does not cause people to get lazy, but will cause them to create/work stuff they enjoy and they're good at. Low labour participation leads to higher welfare costs, but better welfare doesn't lead to low labour participation.



              Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?




              So to answer this question: No. There isn't anything necessary to prevent this scenario as it bases on wrong assumptions.






              share|improve this answer




























                1














                There are so many false assumptions in this question:




                • 1: People don't vote in their own interest. Most people don't really understand politics, they just vote because they think some guy seems to be doing something they think is good. I read once a study claiming that nearly 80% of the Germans vote against their interest.

                • 2: People want to work. They want to do something with their life. If you ask unemployed people ind welfare states, most of them wish to work. There is simply no suitable work available for them.

                • 3: Better welfare does not lead to less employment or less will to work. Welfare does not cause people to get lazy, but will cause them to create/work stuff they enjoy and they're good at. Low labour participation leads to higher welfare costs, but better welfare doesn't lead to low labour participation.



                Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?




                So to answer this question: No. There isn't anything necessary to prevent this scenario as it bases on wrong assumptions.






                share|improve this answer


























                  1












                  1








                  1







                  There are so many false assumptions in this question:




                  • 1: People don't vote in their own interest. Most people don't really understand politics, they just vote because they think some guy seems to be doing something they think is good. I read once a study claiming that nearly 80% of the Germans vote against their interest.

                  • 2: People want to work. They want to do something with their life. If you ask unemployed people ind welfare states, most of them wish to work. There is simply no suitable work available for them.

                  • 3: Better welfare does not lead to less employment or less will to work. Welfare does not cause people to get lazy, but will cause them to create/work stuff they enjoy and they're good at. Low labour participation leads to higher welfare costs, but better welfare doesn't lead to low labour participation.



                  Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?




                  So to answer this question: No. There isn't anything necessary to prevent this scenario as it bases on wrong assumptions.






                  share|improve this answer













                  There are so many false assumptions in this question:




                  • 1: People don't vote in their own interest. Most people don't really understand politics, they just vote because they think some guy seems to be doing something they think is good. I read once a study claiming that nearly 80% of the Germans vote against their interest.

                  • 2: People want to work. They want to do something with their life. If you ask unemployed people ind welfare states, most of them wish to work. There is simply no suitable work available for them.

                  • 3: Better welfare does not lead to less employment or less will to work. Welfare does not cause people to get lazy, but will cause them to create/work stuff they enjoy and they're good at. Low labour participation leads to higher welfare costs, but better welfare doesn't lead to low labour participation.



                  Does anything prevent this scenario from happening in real life? Perhaps voters who receive welfare don't necessarily support programs increasing it?




                  So to answer this question: No. There isn't anything necessary to prevent this scenario as it bases on wrong assumptions.







                  share|improve this answer












                  share|improve this answer



                  share|improve this answer










                  answered 12 hours ago









                  miepmiep

                  69113




                  69113






























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