Question

What sort of income support should Texas provide for needy residents? What are the consequences of reducing benefits (either the number of benefits or the length of time they may be received)? If you were presented with evidence that the social costs of welfare were actually lower than the costs associated with increased crime and urban blight, would you support increased welfare benefits?

Answer 1

Numerous social welfare schemes are provided by the government of the United States of America, each of which is aimed at improving the living conditions for the poor as well as providing aid to them to ensure that they stay employed and their aggregate or total demand for goods and services remains stable over time.

The poorest sections of the society are the most vulnerable group, as their access to modern day facilities such as healthcare, nutrition, education etc is lacking. As a result of this, for generations the same kind of living conditions continue as low income further leads to a cycle wherein you get no education due to affordability and this translates into low employment which goes on in a cycle.

The government of Texas can provide unemployment benefits to citizens to ensure that those that are having a tough time in finding a job, can largely gain from additional income and maintain their overall demand for goods and services and take basic services such as education, nutrition etc without any significant issues or problems.

The end result of reducing these benefits is that, the economy will have higher inequality of income as poor remain poor while, rich get the maximum benefits. if poor do not have sufficient income, the chances of them making any progress with respect to educating their children or providing minimum nutrition or healthcare facilities to them would be negligible.

If the social costs of providing these services to those that were needy, were much lesser than the cost of negative effects such as increased crime which the poor section may do if they remained unemployed and did not have money to spend on necessities, then in that case it is of great advantage for the government to increase its spending on social welfare schemes to ensure that this part of the  society gets its fair share of growth, productivity and access to basic facilities and ensuring long term growth and lack of inequality in the state or economy respectively.

Please feel free to ask your doubts in the comments section if any.