> It is complex - is it better for the money to go back into the economy by paying high salaries to a specific group of highly-educated people?
Yes. Also, the salary will not go _only_ to highly-educated people. For example, if Amazon decides to build a new distribution center, it will employ blue-collar workers to build it, not software engineers.
> Or is it better for the money to go back into the economy through taxes, then disbursing the benefits to lower-income benefit programs?
No.
> I’m not sure what the answer is.
The answer is pretty clear: invest money into the private sector, rather than divert it into the Federal budget. Private actors are more efficient at allocating funds than the government.
I'm not against social spending, it's a necessary evil for any real state. Pure libertarianism leads to dystopian outcomes. But it should be understood that it's a very real artificial inefficiency that is imposed on the economy.
There are also situations where additional social spending is necessary, but they are VERY easy to detect: when your interest rate is near zero.
