A social welfare function is simply a statement of how society's well-being relates to the well- being of its members. - Harvey S. Rosen

From a theoretical point of view, lifetime income would be ideal, but the practical problems in estimating it are enormous.

Some argue that an income tax is unfair because it taxes capital income twice: once when the original income is earned, and again when the investment produces a return.

In an experiment in Illinois, members of a randomly selected group of unemployed individuals were offered a bonus of $500 if they found a job within 11 weeks and kept that job for four months. On average, people who were offered the bonus received UI for one week less than the control group, and the program saved more on UI benefits than it spent on bonuses.