I see your point when you explain the whole better off unemployed than working situation. I don’t really know much about how the US system works but it sounds like it has major flaws like most welfare systems. Having corporations involved sounds like a terrible idea.

Here in the UK there have always been issues but the recent reform seems to make good sense. Now there is one benefit that changes depending on what you earn. If you are unemployed then you get the full lot, but when you start work they only take away a proportionate amount so that you actually receive more money in total than in unemployment. This changes month to month so if you don’t get many hours one week then the benefit money goes up. The flipside is that the media got so obsessed with the minute amount of disability fraud that you have to be basically dead to get any benefit you need there. Seriously some of the fit to work tests are so harsh people dying of cancer get letters saying they are well enough to work and will not be getting any money.

Plus people receiving welfare here are still looked down on as scroungers and cheats, even when they really need the money. We have the same media problem where apparently the poor are spending their money on massive TVs, but in reality many are relying on food banks to feed their families.