http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/who-benefits-from-the-safety-net/?hp


"The center’s study found that the poorest American households, the bottom fifth, received just 32 cents of every dollar of government benefits distributed in 2010."


Other interesting things from the study itself:


http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3677


"Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work. A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs[1] spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work. (See Figure 1.) This figure has changed little in the past few years."


"If we broaden the universe of programs examined to include the principal discretionary programs that provide benefits — low-income housing programs, the WIC nutrition program for low-income women and young children, and low-income energy assistance — the result is essentially unchanged. Some 90 percent of the benefit dollars still go to the elderly, the disabled, and working households.


This figure also changes little if we tweak the definition of a “working household” or of who is “disabled.” This analysis defines a working household as one in which an individual works at least 1,000 hours in a year; raising the threshold to 1,500 hours makes little difference. This analysis defines a disabled person as one who receives Social Security disability benefits or the disability component of the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) or who qualifies for Medicare on the basis of disability; modifying the definition to include disabled people who are not in one of these categories also makes little difference."


So much for welfare queens and the lazy poor, eh?


What the report does show is that disability is quickly becoming the way we deal with marginal working-age individuals. One of the more troubling trends in benefits spending is how quickly disability is growing. A portion of this growth probably is attributable to people who realistically will not work again but may not be 100% disabled being catagorized as disabled, whereas in the past they may have collected the dole.


edit: Post wasn't done when I hit post. Edited to reflect sources and the main conclusion.

That's because the poverty line has been raised to reflect the devaluation of the currency

 

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Kindof surprising how Yuki's title doesn't really match the supporting post.

Oh wait. No it isn't surprising.

 

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Probably because there are more in the middle class than in the poor? I find it amusing that you don't think there are welfare queens. People live entire generations on welfare. We need to make sure they get education for the parents and the children so they can be productive members of society.

 

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Exactly. Considering that most government benefits are composed of Social Security and Medicare (>$1T/year)

Sort of. The bottom 20% gets 30% of the benefits, which is disproportionate. But not nearly as much as you might think from a lot of the rhetoric.


It's also been steadily declining for the past 30+ years. Less and less of the total is going to poor folks and more and more is going to middle class folks.


The security net of government spending is becoming more and more a security net for the working middle class.

True, but isn't that because there are a lot more middle class senior citizens receiving benefits these days?

Saying the very poor are receiving less and less isn't exactly accurate when the entire pie is growing, and what is shrinking is their size of it relative to the whole thing.

 

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That's the single biggest driving force, but hardly the only one.


Also, the poor are receiving less than they used to in absolute as well as relative terms (controlled for inflation). Although the more dramatic effect is the shift in priorities in relative terms. I don't think the point of the study is to say "poor people are getting screwed in a way they didn't used to be," though. The point is that all this rhetoric about how we're creating a class of useless welfare dependents is overblown. Government policy has shifted sharply AWAY from that model in recent years, not toward it.

So even when the "poor" are getting much more they are not getting much because the disabled and old cost even more? The flawed logic of the left is always good for a laugh.

 

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It would be easy to substantiate...

Whats the total number of poor getting government benefits and what percentage of those poor are getting them.

Whats the total number of middle class getting government benefits and what percentage of those middle class getting them?

Everything else is just noise.

 

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