welfare trap

English

WOTD – 9 November 2015

welfare trap (plural welfare traps)

(chiefly US) A situation where the welfare system discourages people who receive government public assistance payments from entering low-paid work because such work does not produce a significant income increase.
- 1982 August 23, Robert Pear, “Getting tougher on work rules for food stamps”, in New York Times, retrieved 9 November 2015:
  Mr. Hayakawa said there was "a class of able-bodied persons who would rather collect public assistance than take jobs". . . . Cutting off food stamp benefits to these people, he said, would remove a disincentive to work, "close off one of the doors into the welfare trap."

situation