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How governments should help those on the dole

    “Active labour market programmes” are schemes meant to help people to fi nd work. They grew out of the American public works programmes of the 1930s, where the government spent billions of dollars busying its citizens with building schools, hospitals and bridges. Today programmes also take the form of training, subsidised private work, or help with fi nding a job. But alongside these programmes, some worry that overly generous welfare benefi ts make people lazy. They say that threats to cut people’s benefi ts if they do not join such programmes could also boost employment, by prodding people off the sofa and into work.