of course this partly reflects behavioural responses to the provision of welfare benefits if pensioners the unemployed and the ill know that they will receive state benefits their incentives to provide for themselves or to insure against the risk of income loss are reduced generous welfarestate provision may therefore lead to a large number of people with no market income and higher levels of inequality of market income the second point to note from table is that redistributive policies have very different effects on final poverty outcomes across countries