by only $400 over the income she would receive if she did not work at all. She would need to work 50 hours a

week to reach $20,800.

The poverty trap is even stronger than this simplified example shows, because a working mother will have

extra expenses like clothing, transportation, and child care that a nonworking mother will not face, making the

economic gains from working even smaller. Moreover, those who do not work fail to build up job experience

and contacts, which makes working in the future even less likely.

To reduce the poverty trap the government could design an antipoverty program so that, instead of reducing

government payments by $1 for every $1 earned, the government would reduce payments by some smaller

amount instead. Imposing requirements for work as a condition of receiving benefits and setting a time limit

on benefits can also reduce the harshness of the poverty trap.
{"title": "Principles of Microeconomics 3e", "batch_upload": true, "file_name": "Microeconomics3e.pdf", "creator": "PDFMiner", "total_pages": 597, "creationdate": "2022-12-07T14:15:44-06:00", "moddate": "2022-12-07T14:23:05-06:00", "uploaded_via": "batch_uploader", "source": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "producer": "Prince 14.2 (www.princexml.com)", "file_size_mb": 26.99, "source_file": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_type": ".pdf", "upload_timestamp": "2026-02-07T15:24:38.309401", "file_hash": "830b81f41611ac67a490444dbb5d6aed292224606965b06965b914443c93331a"}