Americans Are Hooked...

...on public assistance.

49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011.

...

[That figure] is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.

(From "Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits," Real Time Economics)

~~

About 65 percent of federal expenditures over the last ten years have gone towards entitlements. By comparison, about 15 percent has gone towards national defense, excluding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has cost three percent, and only about one percent has gone towards the war in Afghanistan (including the cost of ongoing military operations and all reconstruction and stabilization assistance combined), according to [blog post author Paul Miller's] analysis of figures from OMB.

(From "Obama's Legacy on Afghanistan," Foreign Policy's Shadow Government blog)

Comments

[Binko Barnes]

Average hard-working Americans can no longer find jobs that actually pay a living wage. So they reluctantly take whatever scraps the all-powerful government deigns to throw their way. People want to work, but they want to work at a job that will pay for a house, a car, utilities, health care, a vacation once a year and the other simple amenities of what used to be called the Middle-Class life.

The family that owns Walmart, by themselves, are as wealthy as the poorest 1/3 of all Americans. This is obscene. One family accumulating over a 100 billion dollars on the backs of millions of workers paid a below poverty-level wage. The social contract once was understood to mean that the wealth of our society was shared out through decent wages and benefits. But the greed of the 1% has destroyed this idea.

We seem to be entering a new feudal age. 1% are fabulously wealthy oligarchs. 10% serve the needs of the oligarchy in government, the militory and corporate management. The other 90%, distracted by the bread and circuses of cheap fastfood and on demand games and video, descend dumbly into poverty. My guess is that Americans are too dumb, brain-washed and passive to do anything about it.

[Mark in LA]

Couldn't have said it better.

[roger]

Suppose, just suppose,,,, that all this "public assistance' dissipates into thin air,what would happen then??? I think we know,it's to ugly to contemplate. QE in the form of public assistance is nothing new, it has been growing by leaps and bounds for decades,but QE whether financial or in the form of public assistance will soon go bust. The patient is dying,no life support of any kind will change that.

Binko Barnes: right on.

[john benford]

Social Security benefits,for which I paid premiums for 40 years, now appear on my bank statement as a "Federal benefit deposit". I, apparently, now am considered by the bean counters as "On the Dole". I wonder when the Death Squads will come for me?

[Bill Mcdonald]

At least the owner of this site and those making comments seem to understand what is really going on here- people are going on "the dole" because they have to, to survive.

How come you don't hear the talking heads on the BOOBIE TUBE ever talk about General Electric or Wells Fargo or whoever being on the dole?

T--s and as- will win out every time on the propaganda device, er television, or in the rags or on the new social media.

Gotta hear about the 20 something's latest side boob show, gotta talk about the important things in this life for sure.

[eugene12]

Roger:
I paid in for 50 yrs. Routinely see Social Security portrayed as one of the reasons the country is going broke. The fact the payments are actually repayment of the money the government borrowed from the Social Security fund. The money you, I and millions of others paid in and they don't want to pay it back. And untold millions of witless Americans buy the story. In the witless group I am including many supposedly intelligent, highly educated people.

People know nothing about the system and don't want to know anything. Many of us were uneducated peasants when we came here and uneducated peasants we remain blindly obeying the elites just as we have done for centuries.

[sharonsj]

I'm with Bill McD. Many of the wealthiest corporations pay no taxes thanks to loopholes and benefits in the tax laws. But the Repubs won't do anything about it because their allegiance is to Grover Norquist and they pledged not to raise taxes. But they have no problem taxing the non-rich in every possible way.

The increase of people needing government help is because (1) there aren't many jobs available,(2) most of the new jobs are minimum wage or have little or no benefits, (3) we have had the cost of living increase every year, (4) deregulation and privatization is raising the price of electricity, phone, TV, etc.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my Social Security isn't enough to pay the higher cost of electricity here in Pennsylvania because the gov't took off the price caps. Plus the school and property taxes keep going up because our governor slashed the budget and now municipalities have no money to operate. I truly believe that if the Repubs take control of the White House and Congress, they will institute more austerity programs--and you see how well that's working out in Greece and Spain.... So I suggest you start stocking up on food and bullets.

[roger]

We as a society have the means and ability to sustain ourselves-if not in luxury- at least in producing the necessity's for a decent and good life,with reasonable good retirement program and working conditions. We do not need more growth-we need more fairness in the distribution of the wealth we produce. (Give me control of the nations money supply and I care not who makes the law,"Rothschild" So why do we allow unlimited concentration of this power drug in the hands of a few?

[A. Zarkov]

"One family accumulating over a 100 billion dollars on the backs of millions of workers paid a below poverty-level wage."

The last time I looked at their financials, Walmart's pretax revenue per worker was about $10,000 per year. That's not a lot, and that's why their salaries are low. They could raise salaries, but that means they would have to raise prices, and a lot of people depend on Walmart as a source for cheap goods. You can't have it both ways-- cheap prices and high salaries. For example, Walgreen's charges about $11-$12 a bottle for Gaviscon Extra Strength Antacid chewable tablets. Walmart charges about half as much $6-$7 for the same thing. I suffer from acid reflux, so I use a lot of this stuff, so guess where I buy it? Walmart also beats drug stores like Rite Aid, Walgreen's, CVS on prescription medicines. And it really beats small independents pharmacies.

[Don Levit]

Social Security's actual operation is very different from the intended design of the plan.
The FASAB is the accounting advisor for the federal government. From a paper entitled "Accounting for Revenue and Other Financing Sources and Concepts for Reconciling Budgetary and Financial Information,SFFAS :," published by the FASAB:
Page 109 "The relationship between the tax paid and the value received is too indirect and disproportionate to relate the revenue that is received from any identifiable taxpayer to the cost that is incurred for providing the identifiable taxpayer with benefits. This is especially the case when the benefits are of a collective or public in nature where the benefits are designed to redistribute income from one group of people to another. Therefore tax revenue is nonexchange revenue."
Non exchange revenue is revenue which the taxpayer is compelled to pay, and the government has the right to spend the money in any way it sees fit.
http://www.fasab.gov/pdffiles/sffas-7.pdf.
Don Levit

[Diane M]

I often hear comments about how the older Americans now on Social Security deserve it because they paid in. Well, you paid in to pay for someone else's Social Security before you, someone who lived longer than was projected under the original model. I think it's terrible that my generation will pay in and get NOTHING, and yet people on Social Security now are moaning about a cut in their benefits. Well, how would you feel knowing that you are going to be paying in, never getting anything from it, living a lower standard of living than previous generations, paying higher taxes, buying everything at massively inflated prices, locked out of jobs because you can't afford the costs of higher education,etc. etc. To you older Americans: you had it FAR better than my generation and those after will have it, and WE will be paying for you to continue to have a better lifestyle than we will have at the same age. You have it much better than many many others younger than you.

[William Walton]

The entitlement society we know is part of our "Exorbitant Privilege" - the ability to manufacture the world's reserve currency. The entitlement society will disappear along with the "Exorbitant Privilege" as soon as Europe either unites fiscally or falls apart.

[Granpa]

Diane M has it dead right .......... the money you paid in is spent,gone ....... long gone. Maybe not on what you thought ir was going to be spent on but non the less the guys (and gals) you voted for have long since spent it! The free ride may not be over quite yet but it is coming to an end. The guys at Goldman have done a great job of Destabalising the Euro by showing Greece etc. how to cook the books long enough to hang themselves with debt and expose the fatal flaw in the Euro. US 10 year Treasuries are at their lowest ever so easing the US debt burden. With the euro looking shakey there is now no alternative reserve currency ........ yet! This will help short term but eventually, as every housewife knows, you have to spend less than you earn in order to have a happy house.

[sharonsj]

to A.Zarkov: Walmart's owners are billionaires precisely because they pay their workers so poorly. They could pay workers better, but that would mean less for themselves. So much for the "trickle down" theory of economics.

Don and Diane and Granpa: the money in Social Security is not gone. And if you pay into it your entire working life then it's not an entitlement. Meanwhile, a U.S. Senator only has to work for 6 years to get a full pension while the rest of us have to work for 46 years. So why aren't you bitching about congress's entitlements?

[Bill B]

The elderly: wrong target. If income was more evenly distributed, and middle class wages were increasing rather than stagnant, not only current workers but the next generation would have decent wages and funding Social Security for everyone indefinitely would not be a problem. Meanwhile the rich are hoovering up all the economic gains produced by our society and not paying their fair share. Also remember that the average Social Security payment is around $14K per year. Not exactly extravagant. Where are the "greedy geezers"?

Government employees provide services to the entire nation not the oligarchs. Soldiers, air traffic controllers, teachers, firemen, police, meat inspectors, building inspectors, forest rangers, engineers, economists, the list goes on and on if one bothers to think about it for a few seconds.

[Diane M]

@ sharons--

If you pay into Social Security your whole life and you get nothing, what do you call that? I call it slavery, one generation enslaved to support another, only to get nothing when it's our turn to retire.

[Diane M]

@ Bill B--

I'm not targeting the elderly. I'm merely pointing out that many older Americans seem to think only about how THEY are affected, how THEY'VE been screwed. They don't seem to care that the younger generations paying for them are having a harder time getting an education, starting a family, feeding their family, etc. etc. Saving for retirement? What a joke. Most people in my generation think of retirement as a fairy tale. We'll be working to scrape by until we're in the grave.

I think it's really self centered of older Americans to expect to continue to be kept in the style to which older Americans of generations past have grown accustomed (i.e. a 30-year paid vacation we call "retirement") on the backs of people who will not live as good a life during their working years and will likely be completely broke in their "golden years." The fantasy is over. Everyone, including the older folks who thought they were going to get 100% or more of what they paid in, is going have to swallow the bitter pill meted out by our "leaders." As I said, I'm not targeting the elderly. They are pawns as well. I just get disgusted about the whining a la "We paid in" while my generation will continue to pay in and will get absolutely nothing. The good days may be over for those in retirement, but truly destitute years are in store for those following after. So do I think the geezers are greedy? If they want people who will have it worse than they ever had it to pay for them, then, yeah, maybe they are greedy.

[Lynda Scott]

who's responsible for this mess ! it wasn't like this when i was a kid. 15-year mortgages that were paid off in 10 years was the norm. money in a savings account earning interest was the norm. inheritances left behind to the younger generation was the norm. jobs were plentiful, we all picked berries & babysat in the summer time to earn pocket money. hamburgs were 15CENTS & cokes were a 5CENTS. there are NO JOBS PEOPLE. IF THERE WERE JOBS, WE WOULDN'T NEED TO BE "on the dole" . what are people supposed to do , starve to death !? THERE ARE NO JOBS. if there was a job out there that paid for my auto & gasoline & lunch, i'd be working at it !

[Don Levit]

Sharon sj:
When you say the money in Social Security is not gone... if you are referring to the current payroll taxes, I would agree.
If you are referring to the trust fund, which was intended to collect excess taxes in special-issue Treasury securities, to be used exclusively for Social Security beneficiaries, I disagree.
That money was spent over the years for other government expenses, lowering the deficits, but hollowing out the trust fund so that it was no longer a store of value which can be liquidated, but an empty store which only can draw from the general funds of the Treasury - the same way we pay all expenses, whether in a trust fund or not.
Don Levit

[roger]

If you don't know what's wrong you cant fix it.
Whatever your age,whatever your race, whatever your gender-if you are a working stiff you are Royally screwed- exploited like animals on a farm and faulting each other is exactly what your masters love,it also exposes your abysmal knowledge of political science.

[William Walton]

Jobs are limited due to fiat money. Normally, trade would not be possible unless each trading partner produced equivalent value in product or service; no product or service -no trade. US fake money has temporarily bypassed this inescapable reality and allowed the US for at least 30 years to conduct trade with play dough money, instead of real product or service, long enough to allow our manufacturing capacity to mass exit out of the country. The only way to restore productive capacity and jobs is by a return to honest commodity-based money.

[jayceaden]

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[Rocky]

A. Zarcov: If you are taking lots of anti-acid tablets, you probably need to make changes in your diet. You may be allergic to certain foods. Pills all too often cover up the sypmtoms but don't provide a cure. Check with your doctor.

[Rocky]

New Square, NY is not the poorest place in the US. But according to US census, over 80% of its residents fall below the poverty level. In Kiryas Joel, NY, over 68% of the resdients fall below the poverty level. Poor families with lots of children generally qualify for food stamps, Medicaid, Section 8 housing vouchers and, if they have some earnings from work, the earned income tax credit. What these particular poor communities have in common is that they are both self-segregated communities of Hasidic Jews, where Yiddish is the main language (not English) and where the children receive poor secular educations. Many leave school not prepared to take a job in 21st century America. They are effectively trapped in poverty and in their religious communities, encouraged to marry young and to have lots of children. New Square and Kiryas Joel are offshoots of older Hasidic communities in Brooklyn (Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park). There are also large Hasidic communities in Monsey, NY and Lakewood, NJ. Kaser, NY appears to be the newest community. All Hasidic communities have very high birth rates (8 children per family is typical). Many of the poorer families live in communal housing which qualifies for a religious property tax exemption.

The Hasidics believe in "Be fruitful and multiply" (from the Book of Genesis) not in "Don't have children you can't afford to look after without a government handout." I guess it hasn't dawned on our political elites that this is not a sustainable economic model.

While Republicans continue to try to pass anti-family planning laws and regulations, Democrats simply ignore the rising costs of Hasidic welfare. No politician wants to tackle the issue of poor secular education in Hasidic communities because the parents vote as a block, on the instructions of their rabbis. In New York state, the Department of Education has no control over the secular curriculum of religious schools, based on the freedom of religion clause of the constitution. Read about one former Hasidic's educational experience at

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chaim-levin/the-education-that-i-never-had-growing-up-ultra-orthodox_b_1412953.html

In the end, we the people get to pay the bills.

[Diane M]

@ Rocky--

Very interesting post. I am an atheist and I don't see why my tax dollars should go to support someone else's religious practices, especially being fruitful and multiplying. I think these people should have to live in self-supporting religious communes if they want to have all the children they want.

[A. Zarkov]

@sharons,

If Walmart increased the average salary of their workers by $5/hr, they would wipe out all their pretax revenue. The Waltons are very rich because the business is large and successful and the stock they own got bid up in the secondary market. Suppose they cut their dividend to zero. Walmart pays a dividend of $1.59 per share per year times 3.41 billion shares outstanding. That's $2,700 per employee per year-- they have two million employees. That would amount to a raise of $1.35 per hour. You seem to think that Walmart can give its employees a big raise. Tell me where would that money come from without raising prices?

[A. Zarkov]

@rocky,

Thanks for your concern. I am under the care of a GI specialist. I take proton-pump inhibitors as the main acid control. I also get endoscopy every few years.

[A. Zarkov]

@sharons,

Just how rich are the Waltons? According to Yahoo Finance, Jim Walton owns 10,496,480 shares of Walmart common stock. At the current price of the stock, that's $690 million, so he's not a billionaire. He would collect $16.7 million per year in dividends. So Jim Walton collects $7.59 per employee per year in dividends. Figuring 2,000 hours in a working year that amounts to 0.38 cents per hour per worker. Compare and contrast to Oprah Winfrey. She allegedly has a net worth of $2.7 billion and earned $290 million in 2011. How many employees does she have? I'll bet it's nowhere near 2.2 million. So I don't understand why you pick on the Waltons. They are rich, but they got that money by creating a very successful retailing business. A lot of lot people depend on their cheap prices to get along. If Walmart disappeared, a lot of people would suffer including their employees. If Winfrey disappeared, what would happen? Make no mistake, I don't begrudge Winfrey her fortune as she provides a product people want. I do wish she would target her charity more to America than Africa.

[john]

Thanks for sharing this information... It's crazy how the government can spend so much money on weapons but unable to spend money to feed the poor...