Government policy based on invention

[lexin]

You know the theory that there are scads of families out there where there are three generations who have not worked? And they're all living on benefits? And the people in them are so used to not working that they no longer want to work?

I turns out that when researchers went out in Glasgow and Middlesborough (both areas with substantial worklessness) looking for examples of such families, they did not exist.

Comments

[montanaharper]

meaning that their employers are getting a massive amount of help in the form of in-work benefits, keeping their wages artificially low.

Happens here, too. I actually read an article recently that showed that this is how WalMart operates. A single WalMart store gets something like $450,000 per year in what amounts to government subsidies because their workers are getting welfare benefits. (It also showed that if WalMart were to start paying their employees a living wage and passed that cost on entirely to customers, the average customer would pay an additional $.12 per visit. Twelve fucking cents.)