WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A couple of libertarian economists have written a persuasive but unintentional argument for raising the minimum wage. Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes of the Cato Institute have a new paper out that finds that in many states you can “earn” more money on welfare than you can working a full-time minimum-wage job.

Tanner and Hughes figure that, in Hawaii, a single mom with two kids could, theoretically, collect as much as $49,175 in welfare benefits by taking from all the major anti-poverty programs. Even in Mississippi (the least generous state), she and her family could get nearly $17,000. All without working a minute.

Forget for a moment the numerous flaws in this study, starting with the fact that no one gets anywhere near this kind of money from welfare and ending with the fact that the choice is rarely welfare OR a job — the majority of families that receive welfare also get a paycheck.

Nationwide fast-food strikes begin

Focus instead on what the authors are trying to tell us: The safety net is so generous that it is turning our nation into a country of deadbeats. The safety net not only hurts our economy, it encourages idleness and leads to chronic unemployment. To really help the poor, we must shred the safety net.

“The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” Tanner and Hughes argue. “Many recipients are likely to choose welfare over work,” a choice that will trap them in long-term dependence.

That would be terrible, if true. Fortunately, long-term dependence on welfare isn’t our most pressing economic problem, not by a long shot.

There is a lot of poverty in America. In 2011, there were 46.2 million people living below the official poverty line, about 9 million more than in 2007 when the recession began. That’s about 15% of the total population, up from 12.5% in 2007.

Most poor people are poor only for a short time, due to loss of job, a divorce, illness or simply because they are young adults just starting out. They need time, and maybe a little temporary assistance to help them through the hard times. No one can deny that these are truly hard times: There are 19 million people who want a job.

On the other hand, some poor people are chronically trapped in poverty by age, disability, lack of skills, lack of opportunity and a sense of hopelessness or entitlement.

But are they trapped by dependence on government handouts? Do people really choose welfare over work?

While there are always exceptions, the evidence says few people choose welfare over work.

The percentage of Americans who received benefits from one of the three major means-tested welfare programs rose and fell with the fortunes of the economy. The percentage of Americans who were dependent on those programs for most of their income rose at a much slower rate during the Great Recession. Source: HHS MarketWatch

According to the latest report on welfare dependency (covering 2009, the worst year of the recession), about 4.6% of the population received more than half of its income from the three main means-tested welfare programs: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps and supplemental security income. That’s up from 2007, when about 3.5% were dependent on welfare.

Despite the worst economic slump in generations, the vast majority of Americans — even the vast majority of poor Americans — were not dependent upon welfare.

Three-fourths of TANF recipients were children, most living with just their mom. Do we really think such families would be better off if Mom were working full-time outside the home? Didn’t Ann Romney settle that debate we had last year about whether stay-at-home moms “work”? Read my column on “Are poor people lazy? Or just lucky?”

Other data from the Census Bureau shows that, in 2011, nearly half of poor households had an adult who worked, but only about 7% received cash welfare benefits from TANF.

As it says right in the name, benefits from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families are temporary. Usually, an adult can receive TANF benefits for no more than five years over his or her lifetime, but most get off welfare within a year, and two-thirds are on TANF for less than two years.

Which makes sense, because the benefits are not that generous; the median amount received was just $3,212 for a household.

The fact is, the largest single source of income for poor families is income earned at work.

At a time when our most pressing national economic problem is the large number of people who can’t find work, it may seem odd for these two economists to suggest that our real problem is that not enough people are looking.

Their advice to poor people to “get a job,” would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

The Tanner and Hughes study must be viewed as part of the broader assault on the safety net by a great many Republicans. They want to repeal Obamacare, they want to reduce food stamp benefits, they’ve already cut unemployment insurance benefits in some states, they’d like to force welfare recipients to undergo drug tests. All of this is in preparation for ending or hollowing out Social Security and Medicare.

These Republicans would like abolish the welfare state, not just because it’s expensive, but because it’s immoral. Sen. Rand Paul has equated receiving food stamps with slavery.

Or perhaps serfdom.

The intellectual hero of these Republicans — economist Friedrich Hayek — argued that a modern capitalist economy ought to have a functioning safety net. “There is no incompatibility in principle between the state’s providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom,” he wrote in “The Road to Serfdom.”

If we want to encourage risk-taking, we need a strong safety net to ensure that the costs of failure are not too high. If we want an economy that is constantly reinventing itself through creative destruction, we must make sure that the people whose jobs and lives are destroyed can rebound.

And, at the very least, we need to make sure that working pays better than welfare. So let’s raise the minimum wage to a living wage.