council in south carolina, january where six of the republican presidential candidates came and talked of poverty which is really cool. although we have some energy in the room, the candidates that came are no longer in the grace and even though on the democratic side they were invited but chose not to attend so i don't know where we stand with all of that. in terms of the block grants in the state and how these things play out, the 1996 welfare reform was supposed to be welfare work. it was supposed to have a component and you were supposed to be given encouragement and ways to get a job and the whole idea is we were going to end welfare and get everybody into work. then a lot of those programs were sort of turned over to the

state for enforcement and what happened on the state level has all of a sudden you're dealing with real people. love and behold the waiver started happening. you look at the program as they play out today the rules in washington when it gets out to iowa or washington state or wherever the state is dealing with the population and they adjust accordingly. so i have some concerns about that. but i do like the idea of giving states more control on the flip side so i'm kind of schizophrenic on this because i think that overall, the state's duty with their actual populations. when you hear a case about bush, whoever, the populations they adjust their programs to meet people so if they have the freedom to do that, maybe they would do it better. but what i've seen so far i fars they tend to loosen the requirements rather than tighten them for the most part. >> well, i think one of the things we are going to find is

some interesting questions in the audience. but before i do, let me get a chance to defend against one of the criticisms of your book and that is the victim blaming that's going on is essentially you take a poor person living in inner-city, they've had terrible schooling the inner-city schools are by and large quasi, dealing with the criminal justice system in the war on drugs as you've said, there is no job certainly in the neighborhood. ..

the job situation in inner cities, phil and i did a book event in baltimore and we had a bunch of people in the audience talking about how they wished there were more jobs there for people to have and that was an issue and also agreed they'd rather be working. our opinion is those folks would rather be working. not that they're living there because they choose to live in inner city neighborhoods without jobs available and still the idea that they do want to work is still there. number two when i traveled around the country, i met people i would ask why they wouldn't move for work, because at that time, in north dakota had zero percent unemployment or

something ridiculous. and i would meet people in alabama and say what about moving for work in i did it. it's hard to get off the benefits and move to another state and you have to re-apply and it's complicated. but as far as blaming the victim, i think that is exactly what we're not doing. we're saying we care deeply about the people and they have just as muchright to happiness as we do. why do they have any more or less right to the same things have. have the right to happiness and they do, too, so do banishem, leave them, ignore them, you live in a poor neighborhood, too bad for you. phil and i aring aing we care about them a lot and want them to be happy and believe their happiness come from working. >> the worst thing, seems to me, that you can do to somebody is to put them in a situation where

they'll be in a perpetual cycle of dependency and poverty. that's cruel. and we shouldn't do it. the best thing you can do in this context, it seems to me, is make work more attractive. there's little to be said for doing more to create dependency that doesn't lead to satisfying lives. it leads exactly the other way. so i don't see blaming the victim there. it seems to me that the idea that simply providing more

benefits to people will be good for them and what we found is that it is not. >> it's a really important point. let's go to the audience out here. if you can wait, we have a microphone that will come around. identify yourself as they approach you've with the microphone, and then please keep it to a question and not a speech. right here in the second row right there in the middle. one of you. >> john holliday, i'm an economist. a hypothetical question. that's what i get out of here alive. what happens if you cut all of it and went back to 1960. is this a political issue? i'm thinking in terms there's civil society can the family other, safety nets that aren't uncle sam. what would this look like if you

got rid of everything? i'm not running for office. >> has a good answer. >> well, i think it's a fair question, frankly, and in many respects, there would be pluses. but let us say right off there we be some destitution. one of the things that has been accomplished by the welfare system, although it could have been done other ways -- is to virtually eliminate real destitution in this country. we don't have people starving in the streets itch don't think they would be if we ended everything because americans give away $350 billion a year to private charities, and a great deal more of that if we had no welfare -- great deal more would go to poverty and less probably

to the symphony and museums and universities. so that i think society would adjust. but there would be a period there that would be rough for some people. i do think that private philanthropy could be taking up much, much more of the welfare issue and one of the recommendations we discuss in the book is giving people a tax credit for donating to a list of, like, several thousand charities. there's always the problem of picking those charities, but instead of giving money to the government for food stamps, you could give it to the charity of your choice for assisting the poor, and they would have to use it for something related to that purpose.

i think that would be a good move. >> a couple more thing is would add. there's a very robust underground economy. so people are not necessarily living on food stamps. they're living on food stamps and then trading and bartering. keep that in mind. number two, part of your savings would be a vast array government employees that administer the programs and they'd lose their job but we would free up directly not going towards support. >> in response to that, if now look at what the poor spend as opposed to their income, it's some cases like seven times higher in terms of consumption. so it's significant. the other interesting thing regards to what phil said, if you look at poverty rates prior to 1965 they were coming down steadily, and they continued to

come down through the early 1970s, and then they pretty much leveled off, and you can argue in the '65 to the mid-'70s whether that it would you to welfare spend organize the civil rights act which brought african-americans into the labor force, or women's movement. there's not a whole lot of evidence to suggest that additional welfare spending today is lowering poverty. we have no longer the michael herring ton style destitution where a third of american poor did not have running water in their homes and so on. that sort of stuff is gone. there's a question whether we're actually lifting people out of poverty now with the programs we have. >> the gentleman in the blue right there. >> thank you. >> can you identified yourself?

>> jim lampert, a friend of one of the authors. what consideration have you -- did you give or might you give to things that would stimulate job creation, both in the private sector and the whole new dealer type public works projects and that kind of thing. to me, the -- from what i am familiar with, it's really difficult to find employment under circumstances of the low income -- very low income black areas and people now losing their jobs because of the outflow of jobs to other countries. so, did you give consideration to that, that instead of trying to give people an incentive to find jobs, giving incentives or

put some kind of pressure on the private sector to create plenty of jobs for the people that we have and the federal government in a time of very low interest rates. >> the short answer, jim, is, yes. we have a series of recommendations basically to make it easier for business, particularly small business to create jobs. there's an awful lot of policy now, government policy now, that inhitt hicks job creation. the regulation -- inhibits job creation. the regulations on small manufacturing businesses, for example, are estimated to be something like $15,000 or $20,000 per employee of simple regulatory requirements. so we have a number of recommendations about that.

we have almost absolute sweeping recommendations about idiotic licensing requirements. a lot of that is state originated but it -- when you have to license things like flower arranging and hair braiding and taking care of horses, teeth, and other things, that requires that you go to some college, some training course that costs $1,000, these are stopping people from getting new businesses started, and new businesses are one of the life bloods of our economy. so, we have a number of recommendations about that. as to the availability of work, one of the positive things that lisa mixed just a minute ago is that people are fining work and -- finding work and not telling anybody about it. at least half the people she

talked to -- we think this is indicative of the total population -- were working off the books. there's a big underground economy out, and in a way that's good news because the means of people want to work and means they're fining ways of working and also bartering and exchanging as lisa said. but -- well, let me stop there those are some of the principle things we assault to make nor jobs. -- we suggest to make more jobs. >> licensing is an area of broad bipartisan agreement. the white house has spoken about it. 30% of all occupations ins the require some kind of license, permit, or state approval to participate in. funeral attendants require a

state license and just don't die unapproved or something. up here in front. then we'll move to the back next. >> hi, gary merritt. thank you, phil and lisa, very provocative. i'm looking forward to getting further into the book and fining the narrative having to do with how we got to here with respect to misbegotten political processes and concepts that were embodied in the law, that brought to us this place. i suppose there will be a narrative arc on that. so we would better understand -- we have had presidents who are republicans with different types

of senate and house arrangements and all mixture of things since franklin roosevelt, and yet this has happened. republican, democrat, both. so, do you -- if you can understand how we got to here, might be those people could recall are around the idea that it hasn't worked out they way they wanted and become part of a constituency to change things. instead of just griping about it. >> the way we got here is fairly straightforward. and as society becomes wealthier, people are more and more, you can say, embarrassed there are poor among us or they're simply more concerned or simply realize we can afford programs to assist the poor, so

people need flood. we get food stamps. people need medical care. we dead medicate. nothing terribly mysterious about that. it is odd when you ponderate bit that in all of the relatively prosperous western democracies, including the tremendous scandanavia, as an example how government in this regard can work -- as they bake wealthier, instead of thinking, well, now the whole society is wealthier, so fewer people are going to need welfare, have decided instead that as society becomes wealthier we'll use more of our wealth to help the poor, even though they northeast it -- they need it less than they did before. but that happened here, and it has happened in all the western democracies.

i don't think it's terribly mysterious. and the differences -- there are differences right and left, that is, between conservative and liberal views of all this, but i don't think that's white what you were asking. >> i just -- even with republicans, -- [inaudible] >> yep. got time for two or three more questions. we'll take two and then david will finish it up. thank you. gerald chandler.

would you agree that -- misleading because it's actually a government assistance level and we have decreased poverty? you used the word destitution before and we have certainly decreased that and that what we actually is keep raising the level that government assistance is allowed. >> well, it's a fair point. a number of scholars have hypothetically asked will we continue providing welfare when beneficiaries can afford second homes and sailboats. and it's an interesting question. because the lifestyle of most poor americans today exceed middle american standards of 50 or 60 or 70 years ago. i mean, having running water,

hot and cold running water, indoor plumbing, a television set, microwave and a computer, would have looked very, very good to my parents when they were young. that's quite a long time ago. but relative poverty is a very deeply ingrained belief in american society, and i think in western society generally, and as long as there are people who are conspicuously more poor than most people, i think that the concern will continue to exist, even though an n absolute terms you could argue that it doesn't. >> the gentleman has had his hand up for a while there.

>> steven with basic income action, and i was pleased to hear you mention charles murray and the negative income -- income maintenance experiments from the '60s. want to see if you're following the discourse about basic income in europe and canada and many other places where this idea of a guaranteed floor is gaining enormous support. there will be a referendum in switzerland in a couple of weeks. there are pilot programs getting launched in holland and england and canada there have been pilot programs in indiana and namibia. i wonder if you could comment on the rest of the world and how they might provide insight into what we're doing. >> i think you're right. around the people, it's a sign of the wealth in the world. that we are at a point where we could even be considering a basic income for all citizens and that's wonderful news.

we've looked -- phil has talked about it some but our concern is basically this -- it's sort of at war with our idea that people need to be working to be happy. if you just give them money -- they can choose, as phil said. four guys get together and gate beach house, there's nothing wrong with that but we have fifth sol cal question, what has to mean? the innocent you start putting rulessen on it and you have to work, we're back to where we are right now. phil and i would agree we're excited to see the studies coming about there needs to be a lot more research, and it is fascinating that different countries are reaching the point at the same time. i'm just excited we have that kind of ability. having grownup the developing world and i see how different it is now, we have made lot of process. there are a lot of problems but

the fact that countries are looking at it is awesome. >> certainly we should give it tosome data to begin to look at results. finland is another place, switzerland is going to lose the referendum. it's the nature of swiss democracy, lose anything that is -- the first time it's proposed. the netherlands, we should have dat in a couple of years and canada trying to figure out how to devise their proposed experiment. so, we don't really have data yet or these things aren't really in place yet. but it will provide some interesting data whether or not this is goodful also look to whether we're talking about adding more bench filths into the pile or talking about replace thing excessing welfare system which the fins seem to be moving toward in their approach. the swiss led it up to the federal council to develop so

it's going to probably lose. so, let's finish it up. my colleague, david boes with the last question. >> i have two questions which may or play not be related. number one i was monitoring the twitter feed on the events' somebody posted a question there asking, was there any rigor or sampling to the interviews you did and are you trying to present them as representative of something? my own question would be, if i'm a person who knows a fair amount about welfare, as has read a book artwork study or two what is the most original or valuable thing i would get out of this book? >> it may be related. >> so, as far as rigor, no, there was not a scientific

sampling done by state of what i talked. to i refer to this as randomly sam welling because i randomly waked around and rap into people. that's my answer. i interviewed whoever would talk to me wherever i went. walked into different situations from neighbor reservations to tent cities in seattle where homeless live. think it was representative of the country, which was really important to me. argued pretty hard for going all over the different regions because i thought it was important, but i didn't take five women and five men from each state and give ages and do anything like that. i don't remember the second question. >> the different takeaway, why this book is different than the 250 other books on welfare written in the last ten years. >> because we wrote it. no. >> the most surprising thing to

me -- i think it comes through in the book pretty strongly -- is the importance, the central importance, of work to a decent life. i as libertarian abhor patronizing other people, and if it weren't for the fact that our welfare system is incredibly patronizing right now, i wouldn't be suggesting things that also seem patronizing but it does seem to me -- i think this emerges from the book and is very controversial but seems to me that human beings are happier when they work and even when they are forced to work. even if they don't feel like

working. there are those of us who make our own mountains, sometimes i do and sometimes i don't. a lot of the time what people react to and deal with successfully are challenges put in front of them. and it was an eye-opener for me, and i think it comes through in the book -- that a satisfying life requires work even if it is unpleasant, even if you don't choose it, it still seems to be fundamental to a decent and happy life. >> well, as a reader of the book and not one of the authors and someone who has read a lot of those studies in those books, one thing being i find is a big takeaway is the interviews and the voice of the poor in here because you read a lot of the books on the left, nickel and

dime and other books. they deal with people. you read books on our side of the debate and they deal with numbers. the fact that it this does speak to the people and the people who are hurt by the welfare system, i do find unique and important voice in this debate. for those who want to read that, the book is "the human cost of welfare." the authors are phil harvey and lisa conyers and they'll be up there signing some books. so, please join us for lunch and get your books signed. thank you all for coming. [applause]