Expanding Government Dependency

Who benefits from government benefits?

This is what we have today:

  • 49.1% of the American population lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011.  This is an increase of two-thirds since the end of the Reagan era:
  • 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007 according to a CBO report.  That report also  said that the number of people receiving the benefits, the food stamps, would continue growing until 2014 and would not, in the foreseeable future, revert to anything like the Clinton/Bush era lows.
  • The median number of weeks before someone unemployed leaves the labor force is 21.4.  That’s about five months—a long time.  But then it seems to be final.  Out of work too long, and employers view that person as damaged goods.  Out of work too long, and skills are eroded, and employers are less interested.  That person needs more government benefit payout.

Again, I ask: who benefits from this?  The answer is: follow the money to the source.

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