Actually, as a person in the arts there were many years that I lived way below the level of welfare.
Then I don’t see how it’s possible you think no one would choose welfare over work. It’s so common a phenomenon that I feel silly having to explain it. Think of the other end, where people stop working just before their marginal rates go up, so as to avoid jumping brackets. Welfare works the same way, only as a mirror image.
People would break their legs not to have to work, were malingering not so easy under disability and workers’ compensation law, and ever the easier under soon to be Obamacare.