1.Try a Rawls-type thought experiment based on his Theory of Justice . Consider a situation where a group of employees at a plant are all receiving the same pay. An outside efficiency expert concludes that if five employees at key points in the process work harder than the others, output can increase by a significant percentage. Should those five workers be paid more? How much more? Should they get all the increase in the companys net income since they created it, or should it be at least partly shared with other workers? What considerations influenced your answer?

2. What are the efficiency, equity, and administrative advantages and disadvantages of a means-testing system that phases out eligibility as household income approaches a certain limit instead of just saying that every household below that limit is eligible and those above it are not?

3. By the numbers . Look at the budget for the United States for the last 20 years and find the amount going each year to income support. How has it changed? Separate that amount into Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other. What are the fast growing parts of income support?

4. Behavioral economics . The debate over retaining work incentives underlies both TANF and the EITC. What model of human motivation underlies those two programs? How might the programs be designed differently if part of peoples motivation for working was not just earning an income but also a matter of dignity, self-expression, feeling like a useful and productive part of the community, etc.?

5. Thinking globally . Many other countries, such as Canada, address the problem of eligibility for certain programs such as childrens allowances by providing them to everyone and then recapturing more of the cost from higher income households with higher taxes, especially income taxes. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? What do you think would be the objections to that approach in the United States?