Corporate welfare is a term that analogizes corporate subsidies to welfare payments for the poor. The term is often used to describe a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations
or selected corporations, and implies that corporations are much less
needy of such treatment than the poor. In practice, the term is often
used virtually interchangeably with crony capitalism.
To the extent that there is a distinction, the latter term could be
considered broader, including all types of governmental decisions that
favor the "cronies" (big businesses and industry lobby groups providing
the bulk of political campaign contributions), while corporate welfare
might be restricted only to direct government subsidies.
