[bovine3dom]

Broadly, 20% of GDP already goes on welfare [1]. Government tax take is about 40% of GDP [2], so about half the taxes that corporations "pay" [3] already go to poor people to spend on their products in some sense (if we neglect benefits-in-kind).

I'm sure companies would love to be able to give poor people vouchers rather than paying their taxes but I don't think that's a great idea. This study is primarily saying that cash is great because it's fungible.

[1]: https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm

[2]: https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-revenue.htm

[3]: scare quotes are because all taxes ultimately fall on human beings, whether that be through shareholdings (pensions), suppressed wages or higher prices.

[JamesBarney]

That 20% includes a lot of social spending that isn't necessarily spent on the poor like social security and medicare.

[bovine3dom]

Yeah. In the UK about a third goes on actually poor people. I hope that doesn't invalidate my point: we already have a mechanism where corporations give money to poor people.