The "Safety Net": The Goal Should Be To Minimize The Number Of People Depending On It
/This post is about a situation where the correct public policy approach should be obvious to everyone, but the perverse incentives of government as usual push in exactly the wrong direction.
The issue is how many people should receive benefits, and in what amounts, from government “safety net” programs. From all I can find, there appears to be near-universal support for at least some level of government “safety net” for the poor. After all, no one wants to see fellow citizens starving for lack of food, or dying for lack of medical attention to a curable health condition, and so forth. And can we really count on private charity to fully provide for all the situations of genuine need among the population?
Thus the result: Although the details vary greatly, every country with an advanced economy has an extensive system of “need”-based distributions of benefits to those designated as needy. But how many and which people should receive benefits, and how much?
In practice, the number of beneficiaries and level of generosity of a social safety net are inherently unstable.