The explicit costs alone to provide for welfare assistance are tremendous. The Implicit Costs: Another type of cost is implicit cost. Implicit costs are the costs induced by the producer for the use of self-owned, self-employed resources (Sharp, Register, and Grimes 69). These costs are sometimes ignored or tend to be hidden costs. Such costs can also be identified by the opportunity cost principle. The cost to society of producing welfare assistance could exceed explicit costs. By the government concentrating resources or providing for welfare assistance they reduce the amount of other goods or services, for example, military hardware available to society. By the government cutting back on military hardware, which could have been sold for a profit, it is able to provide more welfare assistance to the poor. These forgone earnings are implicit costs to the government and to society of the welfare assistance obtained by the poor.Benefits: The poor, the government, and society all receive an abundance of benefits on account of social welfare assistance programs. The most obvious benefactor is the poor. Without welfare assistance some individuals might not make it in this world. Also, the poor benefit from other social programs such as job training, childcare, educational grants, medical expenses, and tax credits. If not for social welfare assistance programs, a large majority of these individuals would have a hard time obtaining such programs. The poor aren't the only people to benefit from welfare assistance; the government also benefits from such programs. If welfare assistance programs weren't available to the poor eventually the poor would have to support themselves. There are only a couple of ways to support yourself and it's legally or illegally. If a person can't get a job because of scarce employment or no or little job skills that individual is going to try to "obtain" money some way to put food in his/her stomach. ...
