1) Provide the explanation for the following statements:
a) Providing everyone having same income will make for very unequal enjoyment and the satisfaction.
b) Equality refers to a “superior good”; the richer we become, the more of it we may afford.
c) Mob goes in seek of bread, and the means it utilizes is usually to destroy the bakeries.
d) Some freedoms can be more essential in long run as compared to the freedom from want on the part of each individual.
e) Democracy and Capitalism are really the most improbable mixture. Maybe that is why they require each other—to put some rationality into the equality and some humanity into the efficiency.
f) The incentives generated by the attempt to bring about the more equal distribution of the income are in conflict along with the incentives required to produce the increased income.
2) Explain the important differences between the social insurance and the public assistance programs? Why Medicare is a social insurance program, however a Medicaid is the public assistance program? Why the earned-income tax credit is considered to be the public assistance program?
3) Write down the major criticisms of U.S. welfare system that led to its reform in the year 1996 (through the Personal Responsibility Act)? How did this reform try to address these criticisms? Whether you agree with general thrust of reform and with its emphasis over the work requirements and time limits on the merits?