I support the social safety net. I would disagree vehemently at the current implementation of the social safety net and people who want to expand it in at current form, especially without raising taxes to pay for it.
Both sides want more government support but no one wants to pay for it.
What's "in order to incentivize working"? That feature is infamous for the fact that it disincentivizes working. Incentives not to work don't get any more direct than paying people not to work.
Or working in the other direction, that welfare program represents a standing offer to people working for $100 that it will pay them $25 to quit.
If you do 0 work, you get $100 of welfare.
If you do $100-worth of work, you get your wages plus $75 of welfare. You net more money working than not working.
This is opposed to having benefits "fall off a cliff" if you earn above a certain threshold, which is very much a disincentive to work. Instead, the benefits gradually taper off so that each step toward more employment is always a net positive for the worker.
There is no difference, to the recipient, between "getting $100 of welfare and $75 of the $100 I earned working", or "getting $75 of my $100 of welfare and the full amount of the $100 I earned working".
And there is no perspective from which a means-tested welfare program in which benefits phase out with increasing income does not represent a disincentive to work.
And anyone who still qualifies for public assistance is not paying income tax yet. Not 25% at least.
But that's beside the point. The point is that it is possible to structure the benefits so as not to penalize gainful employment. You make sure that it's worth more money to work than to not work.
Before: 0 labor output, $100 income.
After: $100 labor output, $175 income.
You've gained $75 by doing $100 of labor, which means that the welfare program is taxing your labor income at a 25% rate. This is a fairly strong disincentive to work, and a substantial penalty on gainful employment. In the reverse direction:
Before: $100 labor output, $175 income
After: 0 labor output, $100 income
You'd expect losing $100 of sales to represent a loss of $100 in income. But it's only a loss of $75, because the welfare program will subsidize you to quit your job. This is, again, a disincentive to work.
To evaluate whether the program is an incentive to work or a disincentive to work, you have to ask whether, in the presence of the program, more work or less work is done than would be done in the absence of the program. It's not at all relevant that the marginal tax rate implied by the program is always less than 100%. As long as it's more than 0%, it is a disincentive to work.
We should eliminate existing welfare programs, of which there are many, and turn it into a simple cash transfer to the recipient's bank account. If society wants to give $X in welfare to person Y, then let's give $X to person Y and not have all of the other drama and waste around it.
I keep seeing conservative/libertarian groups propose things such as negative income taxes and UBI, but feeding the beast that is capitalism wont necessarily provide individuals substantially better conditions than exist today without additional major policy changes.
It’s an argument, but I think the simple solution is just to have one bucket and trust that individuals know what they need to spend money on best.
The twist you have, that food is a unique resource we grow too much of and SNAP is essentially free because we use food that would be wasted, is very strange and I haven’t heard it before. I don’t think government purchasers buy food from the trash pile, it all comes from the market.
Have you met people who struggle with addiction?
I suspect placing money explicitly into a food bucket is the only thing keeping a lot of children fed.
And it's fine to argue that if people make poor decisions, they should be allowed to suffer the consequences, but that downplays the consequences that those around them suffer as well, especially children.
It's perfectly reasonable to say the money should be in a single bucket, but don't delude yourself that people are rational actors.
Your anecdote does not change my opinion. I trust that most poor people are hard working and honest, not one foot in the grave with dope like your friend.