DNC Convention and "investment"

[Ronin13]

Roughly 12.5M unemployed, down from a high of

Welfare: 1.7% derive over 50% of their income from welfare, and about 8% (29.9 million) of the population receive some type of assistance (food stamps, etc.), if we count Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Demographically, the latter is broken down into about 39% white, 38% Black, 17% Hispanic.

Here's a article from WSJ that reports that almost half of the US population lived in a househould where at least one member received some benefit from the government.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/...ting-benefits/

Unfortunately, details on what counted as a benefit were lacking, so it's not a useful data point.

Actually your data is out of date-
As of 7/26/12 (most recent data available)
Total number of American’s on welfare 15,000,000 (4.1%)
Total government spending on welfare annually (not including food stamps or unemployment): $131.9 billion
Total amount of money you can make monthly and still receive Welfare: $1000
Total Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than an $8 per hour job: 40
Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than a $12 per hour job: 7
Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than the average salary of a U.S. Teacher: 9
TIME ON WELFARE PERCENTAGES:
Less than 7 months: 19%
7 to 12 months: 15.2%
1 to 2 years: 19.3%
2 to 5 years: 26.9%
Over 5 years: 19.6%
14.5 percent of people share a home with a person on Medicare, and 16 percent lived with someone reliant on Social Security.
32.4 percent of the U.S. population receives support with food stamps, subsidized housing and healthcare support.
Applications for state benefits have increased 50 percent in the past decade.

Entitlements have to go... they're sucking us dry. It's the scary, dirty, and unfortunate truth, but that's the way it is...

[Rucker61]

Actually your data is out of date

Quite possibly, although I suspect we'd find different data from just about every source. It's the inherent inaccuracy of collecting this type of data.

What is the source of your data?

Entitlements have to go... they're sucking us dry. It's the scary, dirty, and unfortunate truth, but that's the way it is...

What's your answer to the problem? Just turn off the spigot? Given the numbers you listed, there are a lot of people that would be affected, including plenty of seniors and children.

[Ronin13]

Quite possibly, although I suspect we'd find different data from just about every source. It's the inherent inaccuracy of collecting this type of data.

What is the source of your data?



What's your answer to the problem? Just turn off the spigot? Given the numbers you listed, there are a lot of people that would be affected, including plenty of seniors and children.

Census data.
I'm not a policy maker, so I don't actually have a solution, but I can identify where the problem is. If you have a house on fire you have to put the fire out before you can even begin to think about rebuilding it.