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Wednesday, February 8. 2012

Redistribution


Via Politico:



One in five Americans — or slightly more than 67 million — now relies on federal assistance, at a cost of $2.5 billion annually. That’s the highest in the country’s history, the authors wrote. The index also found that Americans who depend on federal assistance receive an average of $32,748 in benefits, about $300 more than the nation’s average disposable personal income.



No wonder hard-working people are ticked off.

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 13:51 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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$32,748? Be sure you got the true facts...And even if so,I would rather see people here get it than all the give aways
that go to some countries,oil corp.big farm and just all the subsidies tax breaks ,doled out in the game of politics.
2.5 bil is a piss in the bucket compared to the larger scheme of our monster!
Have a good one
#1 RL on 2012-02-08 14:22 (Reply)
If 67,000,000 average $32,748 in benefits, the amount is $2.194 TRILLION, not $2.5 BILLION and, yes, that $2.1 trillion is basically the 2011federal expenditure on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, or 56% % of a $3.8 trillion federal expenditure. Hardly "piss in the bucket". In 1964, these three accounts were 19% of federal spending; now they account for 56%.
#1.1 Peter on 2012-02-08 17:56 (Reply)
indeed, noted the glaring error in the numbers. Got to wonder if the original report made that error deliberately in order to downplay the problem.
#1.1.1 J.T. Wenting on 2012-02-10 05:00 (Reply)
While I am among the first to complain that the "safety net" protects too many people much too expensively, the numbers provided here don't add up.

$2.5B out of the federal budget (and presumably some of the safety net is provided through state budgets) is like pissing in the ocean. My Fellow Americans are NOT tossing 67 million of their Fellow Americans into the economic abyss to save $2.5B.

The math (67,000,000 people * $32,748 per person) yields a number much closer to $2.5T (as in TRILLION). That number seems a bit much. That's roughly 2/3 of the $3.7T federal budget. It might hold water if we look at a total federal + non-fed provided state budgets ($5T neighborhood?).

I could potentially believe that 50% of all budget goes out to some number of citizens IF we're including things like payments through "earned income credit" income "tax" payments and all other forms of welfare. But even that... 50% of all budget paid out to 20% of all people?

Something doesn't hold water here.
#2 Knucklehead (Link) on 2012-02-08 15:17 (Reply)
Well, the actual report from the Heritage Foundation

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/2012-index-of-dependence-on-government

does claim (see chart 2) that "more than 70%" of federal spending goes to "dependence programs".

That, clearly, is unsustainable for even the short term. We can't have a mere 50% of us working as tax slaves for the other 50% while they take 70% of the outlay.

Wish I had time to try and analyze the report.
#2.1 Knucklehead (Link) on 2012-02-08 15:23 (Reply)
What are "dependence programs?" I get three electronic transfers (checks) from the government -- Army, VA and Social Security. I depend on those payments. My brother is retired Civil Service. He depends on his check. A CNN streamer the other day claimed 148 million households receive federal money.
#3 Sgt. Bob (Link) on 2012-02-08 18:26 (Reply)
Army and VA payments are NOT the 'dependence programs' Heritage cites. Neither are public employee pensions nor their dependents' healthcare costs. Nor do they include the health care insurance and medical costs I pay for my dependents that, by Obama's reasoning, the federal government ought to pay. The basic, undisputed entitlements are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, or $2.13 trillion last year. Other 'dependent programs' would likely include food stamps, welfare payments, and unemployment insurance. These bring the dependents' bill closer to $2.5 trillion last year. Someone made a huge typo in the original post: The cited figure should be TRILLION, not billion.
#3.1 Peter on 2012-02-08 18:51 (Reply)
Keep hashing out the real numbers, please.

If this is all federal, exclusive of state, county, and local funds, I would guess that it must include... no, I won't guess. The estimated cost of Medicare, if you had to buy it privately, may be included. Housing and utility subsidies may be included.

An enormous problem with this is not just that high support numbers take from those who work, but that they create a disincentive to work. Families with kids, suddenly no longer eligible for childcare or healthcare, have to have a lot of personal determination to say "I don't care. I should work at a crummy part-time job anyway, even if it does put my kids at risk."

Incentives at the margin are where it's at in economics. Always.
#4 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2012-02-09 18:21 (Reply)
These are the numbers Bahama Obama do not want you to see, America it's time we woke up, we have been asleep at the wheel
#5 Brian Boland on 2012-02-11 18:30 (Reply)

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