Welfare's effect on poverty
[2] Empirical evidence suggests that taxes and transfers considerably reduce poverty in most countries whose welfare states commonly constitute at least a fifth of GDP.
[3][4][5][6][7][8] In 2013, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development asserted that welfare spending is vital in reducing the ever-expanding global wealth gap.
Quantitative measurement of the impact of welfare programs on poverty provides different estimates depending on the study design and available dataset.
Many studies look at the net impact of tax and transfer programs on relative poverty as disaggregated analysis requires substantial amounts of high-quality data and robust estimation methods.
Kenworthy's study also adjusts for economic performance and shows that the economy made no significant difference in uplifting people out of poverty.
[13] Using data from 18 OECD countries and the Luxembourg Income Study, Korpi and Palme identified a typology of five "ideal" social insurance institutions that can serve as the basis for evaluating the degree to which different welfare states are successful in achieving their redistributive goals.
This finding complicates the traditional hypothesis that a more generous welfare state will have been more successful at reducing income inequality and poverty; Korpi and Palme argue that this is due to three overlooked circumstances:
These findings led to what Korpi and Palme titled the paradox of redistribution:"The more we target benefits at the poor only and the more concerned we are with creating equality via equal public transfers to all, the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality [...] if we attempt to fight the war on poverty through target-efficient benefits concentrated on the poor, we may win some battle, but we will probably lose the war.
Conservative groups such as The Heritage Foundation[18] argue that welfare creates dependence, a disincentive to work and reduces the opportunity of individuals to manage their own lives.
[26][specify] A January 2014 Pew Research poll found that 49% of Americans believe government aid to the poor does more good than harm as people can not escape poverty until basic needs are met and 54% believe taxes should be increased on the wealthy and corporations to expand anti-poverty programs.
For example, the cultural shift towards viewing poverty as an issue of "behavioral dependency" of deficiency directly influenced the reduction of entitlement welfare pushed by the Clinton Administration in the PRWORA.
[31] Studies show that U.S. states with stronger anti-welfare sentiment amplify the experience of welfare stigma, especially along the lines of race, ethnicity, and education.
