During the 1980s, I rented to welfare recipients. Ninety percent of my tenants were able-bodied women with children who simply chose welfare instead of work. Indeed, one woman who tried to give me friendly advice suggested that I stop fixing up the apartments at night and give up my day job. "Have some kids and get on welfare so that you can enjoy your life," she counseled me.
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Why would someone choose to conceive children as meal tickets and live on welfare? By the mid-'90s, a person would have to earn $5.50 to $17.50 per hour (depending upon your state) to get more after-tax benefits than they'd receive on welfare! Of course, choosing welfare instead of work didn't give a person job experience or regular raises, so choosing poverty as a teen was generally a life sentence.
When Ohio required capable welfare recipients to work, 40% of them decided that they didn't need help after all. Oregon tried to place its able-bodied welfare population in jobs by offering employers a subsidy to take them. Once welfare recipients found out that they were going to have to work for someone, 80% went out and found an unsubsidized job. Clearly, a great deal of the welfare population simply chooses not to work when tax dollars, usually in excess of what they would initially earn, are readily available. Giving money to those who could work results in less money for those who can't.
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Let's assume that Wisconsin's experience was atypical and that nationwide, only 50%, rather than 71%, of the people on welfare are capable of supporting themselves. Private charities would be likely to weed out such people. Thus, if we simply gave the equivalent of the welfare budget to churches and other private charities for distribution, twice as much help would go to the truly needy -- virtually overnight!
Of course, public welfare gives over two-thirds of every tax dollar we give them to overhead (e.g., salaries of the bureaucrats who administer the program). Private charities, however, give two-thirds of every dollar to those who need help. By switching to private distribution, we'd cut overhead in half. In other words, we'd double the dollars available to the needy once again. By switching from public to private charity, we'd quadruple our help to the disadvantaged -- virtually overnight!
Taxes are expensive to collect. Two-thirds of a dollar are spent to collect one dollar of taxes. If everyone in a libertarian society voluntarily gave the same amount to charity as they do today through taxes, once again we'd triple what the disadvantaged receive. In other words, if private charities received the entire welfare budget in voluntary contributions, we'd multiply by twelve the money available to the poor!
Even if private charities received one-tenth of what our current welfare budgets are, the poor would still be better off than they are now. From all indications, however, each generation of Americans is more charitable than the last. In 1996, the average donation per adult was twice the inflation-adjusted average in 1970 and triple the 1950 average. Volunteer work has increased in roughly the same proportions.
How significant are private contributions to charity? If volunteer time is valued at the minimum wage, total private contributions to charity exceed the combined poverty budgets of government at all levels. If Americans contribute so generously while they are also forced to pay taxes for government welfare programs, wouldn't we expect them to give more, not less, if government left more money in their pockets?