ures have surpassed the old welfare program AFDC, cost-benefit analysis can help identify the optimal level of expenditures of welfare assistance programs, as long as estimates of the benefits and costs of welfare assistance are supplied. Once benefits and costs are estimated, cost-benefit analysis indicates that well being will be enhanced through an increase in welfare assistance programs so long as the benefit society derives from the increase is at least as great as the cost of the increased activities. (Sharp, Register, and Grimes 101) The Opportunity Cost: The costs or money expense of welfare assistance to society is ultimately supplied through some sort of tax revenue. The economic cost to society is the value of the goods and services that resources used for welfare assistance could have produced if they had not been used for welfare assistance. This simple concept is also known as the opportunity cost principle which states that the true cost of producing an additional unit of a good or service is the value of other goods or services that must be given up to obtain it. (Schiller 10) The opportunity cost principle can be an effective means of identifying the actual costs of welfare assistance.The Explicit Costs: Other types of cost pertaining to welfare assistance are explicit costs. Explicit costs are the cost incurred by the producer to buy or hire the resources required to accomplish its objective (Sharp, Register, and Grimes 69). Although welfare assistance is provided by the government and not a business it does have an objective and that objective is to provide for the poor. The explicit costs of the services provided by the government be it state or federal are the costs of the resources that it buys and hires to provide such services. Such expenses include land, employees, buildings, equipment, and etc. Welfare assistance is provided in all 50 states with offices throughout each state and probably each county. ...
