The $10.10 minimum wage offered up by HRM Obama will cost 500,000 jobs, give or take, according to the non-partisan CBO. The real toll is probably much higher since HRM continues to remove all incentives to work or get off the couch to look for work. Check out here what real reform looks like coming out of the other welfare states. At some point the money runs out. Cato friend Michael Tanner writes:
Of course, European welfare states were larger to begin with, but the Telegraph’s report is reflective of an important trend. While the Obama administration presses forward with efforts to combat “income inequality” by expanding the American welfare state, the European nations and other industrialized welfare states are moving in the other direction.
A few examples:
The Netherlands: Just 42 percent of U.S. welfare recipients are engaged in even broadly defined work activities (including job training, college, or job searches), and Republican attempts to restore work requirements to the food-stamp program have been met with a storm of resistance. Meanwhile, the Obama administration touts the idea that Obamacare will enable people to quit their jobs while having their health care subsidized by taxpayers.
The Dutch, on the other hand, have announced a massive reform of their welfare system, designed to put a new emphasis on work. For example, welfare applicants will now be required to prove that they spent at least four weeks actively searching for a job before they become eligible for any assistance. And once they begin to receive benefits, they will have to either work or perform volunteer community service. Dutch welfare recipients would be required to take available jobs even if they had to move or commute up to three hours per day.
Other reforms would reduce benefits by treating families as a single unit, rather than as separate individuals. For instance, a mother with two children would receive a single payment rather than three separate payments. The combined payment would be less than the total of three separate ones, based on the assumption of “shared expense.” According to the Dutch government, the reforms will ensure that welfare is seen as “a safety net, rather than a right.”
