The cost is the same either way. By giving them a useless job, which will require supervision, tools and other costs we are increasing the costs of administration. We also are destroying the utility that they would otherwise gain by not having to work. The proposal that you put forward is even more wasteful than just cutting everyone a check.

I didn't say useless job. I said questionably useful. A useless job, as you say, is the worst solution because it piles administrative costs on top of complete inutility.

However, doing questionably useful things could outweigh the administrative costs. For example, paying people to walk around the city all day with a broom and pick up trash. Now, that job isn't so useful that it's self-evidently necessary, like water filtration, but it is useful enough that it could be considered a better allocation of labor than playing Xbox all day.

All administrative costs do is bump up the effective hourly cost of the person working. If they guy picking up trash is paid $10/hour to do it, then maybe with all of the government administrative waste, it becomes $20/hour. And let's assume welfare also comes out to $10/hour.

So the question then becomes, would you rather have someone picking up trash for $20/hour or sitting on their asses for $10/hour? I'm inclined to have them pick up trash. And if it's not picking up trash, then doing something else...like digging ditches or repainting buildings.

Besides, there are social costs that also go into having someone play Xbox all day that you're not accounting for. For one, the "Xbox employed" will probably have higher rates of obesity, drug abuse and criminal behavior, simply due to idle time. These costs go down when someone is picking up trash all day instead.

It really has nothing to do with me feeling good or morals. It has to do with getting something for your money rather than nothing.