Keep calling it a 'welfare payment' as if that's really the case, maybe it will one day be true in some other fantasy universe that you and people like you live in. The PFD is a payout of earnings from investments in other businesses, like the stock markets around the world. This money originally comes from oil, but the PFD is a fund set up for the people, to be given to the people and not for politicians to bankroll their pet projects and their cronies.