So the government moved to “work fare” meaning someone recieving public assistance for rent or food, etc must be seeking employment or be employed.
There is not too many rules, just show a pay stub. These assistance programs are much more valuable than the minimum wage job many people work that need these programs. Now there is no means testing these programs meaning the more you make the lower the assistance provided. They’re just something like 1.5 to 2xpoverty level qualify or cut off.
This creates a large workforce that will work minimum wage jobs. Jobs that otherwise can’t even pay for a car.
We are subsidizing low wage employers by about $17 billion per year.
There are lots of solutions for this. We can tax employers per employees that work below a certain wage or we can simply raise the minimum wage. We can add means testing to assistance programs. Etc.
What we should not do is continue this system.
