The economic issue is that when you take money away from hard working people and give it to people who are less productive, it creates disincentives to work so hard. In real terms, that means people are less inclined to take risks in starting new ventures which provide new businesses with new jobs that ultimately increase overall wealth. On the flip side of that, it also reduces disincentives to make bad choices since the risks are reduced. And as those disincentives take effect, there is less money to distribute as less wealth is created.
However, having vast numbers of poor and homeless people also incur an economic cost. So ultimately there is some ideal amount for taxation and spending on safty net programs.
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Rather than thinking of these as economic costs, try thinking of them as actually sustaining employment for the middle class. Welfare workers, drug treatment centers, police officers and court workers, health clinics etc are generally jobs held by the middle class. If these issues were completely and permanently resolved a lot of people would lose their jobs.
Have you ever been laid off by a corporation that is outsourcing their work? Corporations have been spending a decade or two slashing workers. If poor people don’t fire you, they are doing less damage than corporations who do.
Poor people spend all their money buying things to survive. That is called demand. If enough poor people have money, demand will go up , then companies will hire.
There is some economic benefit to giving money to those who have none because it goes back into the economy. But that won’t be self maintaining. It is a means of short term economic stabilization. It also reduces the costs of allowing people to live in severe poverty, which results in crime, disease, and generational poverty. But increased demand does not translate directly to jobs in our modern technological society, or when the jobs can be created in some other country.
I see economic advantages to welfare, but it makes no sense as a strategy, only as a tactic.
Social Security is a big demand producer. The Repubs want to kill that too. Is there anything they do that makes the middle class and poor, thing they have their interests in any calculation?
The thread is “Why isn’t welfare considered a good economic strategy?”. You can make a comparison between welfare and Social Security if you want. But you just threw it out there without any explanation of why.
I guess I did spread it out. But both are programs that put money into the economy that enjoy the multiplier effect. They create demand and therefore jobs.