Welfare spending is government intervention meant to provide a minimal level of well-being and social support for all citizens.

Welfare may also refer to:

• Well-being of a person or group
• Utilitarianism, a general term for well-being in ethics
• Prosperity, a state of flourishing

• Utility, a general term for individual well-being in economics and decision theory
  • Decision utilities, utilities as revealed by human behavior under the assumption of rationality
  • Economic surplus, the total economic benefit a market provides for society
• Social welfare function, a function that aggregates individual welfares to create an overall social welfare
  • Social choice theory, the study of welfare aggregation
• Welfare economics, the study of social well-being

• Welfare state, the concept of a government playing a key role in individual economic and social well-being
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a federal assistance program of the United States formerly referred to simply as "Welfare"

• Welfare (film), a 1975 film by Frederick Wiseman
• HMS Welfare, the name of two ships of the Royal Navy, and one planned ship

• Animal welfare, the quality of life or well-being of animals
• Corporate welfare, term describing the bestowal of benefits upon corporations by government
• Welfare fraud, intentional misuse of welfare programs by providing false information
• Welfare queen, a pejorative term for a person accused of collecting excess welfare payments