Michael R. Strain, Columnist

The Welfare Debate the U.S. Should Be Having

What does society owe those who are “unwilling to work,” and what do they owe their communities?

March 3, 2019 at 3:00 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

The argument for economic security.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first rolled out her Green New Deal, she called on the government to provide economic security to those “unwilling to work.”2Conservatives correctly seized on this to argue that the Democratic Party seemed to be moving quite a bit further to the left in its views on economic policy.

The controversy was reignited this week, when first daughter Ivanka Trump rejected a “minimum guarantee” for people who are unwilling to work. Ocasio-Cortez shot back. Expect more volleys to follow.

The political score-keeping aside, the blunder crystallized the issue that experts should be discussing: the relative importance that government policy places on personal responsibility, on the one hand, and economic security, on the other. How do you balance the two?