The price of working

My name is Scott Banks. I live in New Jersey I'm married and I have two children. At this point in time neither myself nor my wife work. Recently, a friend of mine found me a job. It pays 15 dollars an hour with no benefits. It's a job that anyone can do without any college education, which is good because I haven't stepped inside a school since I graduated high school.

My goal here on this blog is to determine after how may hours of work, does it no longer pay to continue working. The first hour that I work I will make $15. That's good, but there will come a point where a large portion of every hours' wages will go to taxes. I may even stand to lose money if I work too much, because it could disqualify me from receiving welfare.

I don't enjoy work. Every hour I work is an hour I could have spent at home watching TV. I like watching TV. So if I find that by working more hours that I'm not making more money than I could if I stay home and watch TV, I'll just stay home and watch TV.

The question is: At what point is it no longer profitable to work? To start answering this question, we first have to figure out how much money I stand to gain without working at all. That is, how much can I make from welfare. Next we have to figure out how much of the money I make goes to taxes? What are my other work related expenses? Lastly, we have to figure out at what income level do I start losing my benefits from welfare.

I'm going to start with estimating the true value of welfare. I'll be looking into programs like HUD (section 8), food stamps, New Jersey family care (health insurance), Assistance with utilities etc. This is going to be a big job and I will need help, so I sure hope someone helpful is reading this.