State benefits come from nowhere

Many people receiving state benefits prefer to think of them as coming from ‘the universe,’ or some impersonal source rather than from taxpayers’ contributions.

If benefits are thought of as transfers from workers, recipients may feel stigmatized, as though they are dependent on, or a burden to, others. They are dependent on, and supported by others, but they prefer not to acknowledge that fact.

Imagining benefits as coming from a neutral, impersonal source, or even ‘the universe,’ helps them preserve the dignity of not having the sense of being beholden to any particular people.

In modern welfare systems, money isn’t literally handed over by individual workers; it flows through the state. This distance makes it easier to view benefits as entitlements from a collective system rather than support fromtaxpayers. The intervention of a civil service diverts much of the money that could otherwise be paid as benefits. Milton Friedman described it as “like throwing silver dollars at a barn door in the hope that some of them will slipthrough the knot-holes.”

 Some politicians and media often emphasize that benefits come from taxpayers, which can carry a moralizing tone “your money is funding their lifestyle.” While this is correct, it reduces the distance that welfare recipients prefer to feel. For them, resisting this framing by imagining an impersonal or cosmic source can be a way of asserting independence and countering hostile narratives.

The psychological distance matters to the recipient. Directly acknowledging that benefits come from workers’ taxes might fuel feelings of guilt, indebtedness, or conflict with working peers, whereas viewing benefits as coming from ‘nowhere’sidesteps interpersonal tension and makes it easier to coexist socially.

Basically, framing benefits as coming from taxpayers emphasizes dependence and hierarchy; framing them as coming from ‘the universe’ emphasizes entitlement, collective provision, and dignity. People on benefits may prefer the latter view because it reduces stigma and helps sustain self-respect. Whether they should merit that self-respect is debatable.

The Behavioural Insights team might locate the areas where most people who could work prefer not to, and put up posters locally showing a young nurse going to work, with the caption, “Does it bother you that working people pay the taxes that let you sit at home playing computer games instead of working?”

Madsen Pirie