recipients. In FY 2011, federal spending on means-tested welfare, plus state contributions to federal programs, reached $927billion per year. Roughly half went to families with children, most of which are headed by a single parent. The United States has also typically relied on charitable giving through non-profit agencies and fundraising instead of direct monetary assistance from the government itself. According to Giving USA, Americans gave $358.38billion to charity in 2014. This is rewarded by the United States government through tax credits for individuals and companies that are not typically seen in other countries. Since these per capita charity sums are much higher than in all other countries, this means that private people and companies have a strong say in how social assistance is carried out. This means that public funds in the form of unpaid taxes are distributed according to less professional, less objective, and less unbiased criteria than in all other countries. Effects The welfare-to-work intervention programme is unlikely to have any impacts on the mental and physical health of lone parents and children. Even when the employment and income rates were higher in this group of people, the poverty rate was high which could lead to persistently high rates of depression whether they were in the programme or not. Income transfers can be either conditional or unconditional. Conditionalities are sometimes criticized as being paternalistic and unnecessary, and research in different contexts shows enforcing conditionalities can result in additional burdens for recipients and social service providers. A 2008 study by welfare economist and Brown University Professor Allan M. Feldman suggests that welfare can achieve both competitive equilibrium and Pareto efficiency in the market, although different points of Pareto efficiency are more fair to some than others. Some opponents of welfare argue that it affects work incentives. Perception According to a 2012 review study, whether a welfare program generates public support depends on: whether the program is universal or targeted towards certain groups the size of the social program benefits (larger benefits incentivize greater mobilization to defend a social program) the visibility and traceability of the benefits (whether recipients know where the benefits come from) the proximity and concentration of the beneficiaries (this affects the ease by which beneficiaries can organize to protect a social program) the duration of the benefits (longer benefits incentivize greater mobilization to defend a social program) the manner in which a program is administered (whether