I recently got into a debate via social media about the current condition of the United States Welfare program and challenged to present data to support my views on why the American Social Programs are overrun and this article is what I put together. I hope you enjoy the read!
America thrives on a Citizens capability to thrive in the work force and achieve fiscal independence, and I have always believed that as a person that is blessed to walk the soils of this glorious nation that I am able to achieve such financial prowess by possessing these three American traits; strong work ethic, ambition, and ferocious determination but there is a growing lack of these traits in America as more Citizens settle into the social programs that have come to be since the revelations of the 1930’s or The Great Depression era and I have often wondered how have these programs developed over the decades since their conception. So lets look at the current numbers and reference the numbers of the 1980’s – a relatively lull era of events.
Welfare Statistics
Total number of Americans on welfare—————- 12,800,000
Total number of Americans on food stamps————- 46,700,000
Total number of Americans on unemployment insurance—2,859,000
Total number of Americans on assistance————– 21%
As we all know Welfare has long been a considerable presence in the U.S. economy that now services 313.9 million people. As of August 65.1 million or 21% of the American population are enrolled in an assistance program. I by no means feel that social programs serve no benefits to America, but I do not think that such a hefty amount of American’s need to be involved in this program – call it skepticism as only 58.6% of our population attributes to the labor force – now I know what most may be thinking at this point – What a brutal thing to say! I know many people that can hold jobs but will not as they are assimilated to entitlement living. America needs programs like this to ballast the poverty levels – I know this, but the term “impoverished” needs to be reevaluated as if a person is a working class American that cannot afford vital life needs then they very well should seek assistance as most Americans would be overjoyed to help a working family, but if a person on this program makes it a long term career choice than they should be desisted from their position and recycled into the labor force until they accumulate some work experience and replenish some of the funds they used in their long stay on Welfare – this is my opinion anyway.
So lets look at how long Americans on these programs stay on them; here are the statistics based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human:
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%
Another portion of this debate is how these programs affect The United States financially – So let’s take a look.
Currently, entitlement spending reflects as a 19% expenditure to our Gross Domestic Product or GDP which currently produces $15.6 trillion annually. That means Entitlement spending cost American’s $3 trillion a year! These figures are an increase from the 1980’s deduction of 13% which would have equated to $3.6 billion deducted from the $2.8 trillion GDP generated in the 1980’s. An impressive jump in expense in just 33 years; to put it in a stronger prospective that is a $2.994 trillion dollar increase; or 9.1 billion dollar increase each year since 1980 – I think we all got the point by now. It is truly a growing deficiency in our gross domestic product and it is projected to grow significantly with the current fiscal course of the United States.
My calcuations are based on the most recent published data from government agencies and does not reflect the implications of inflation over time.
Now enough about numbers, lets talk America – we all know that America faces some turbulent times ahead and with those times Americans will suffer and have to go without certain properties of their life but lets face it we cannot continue to feed horrendous amounts of dollars into a program without discussing how to weed out career beneficiaries that take from those that actually need aid. There must be changes to these program that make it as prosperous as it was meant to be, not a lifestyle choice for working capable American’s. We can fix any aspect of America if we are willing to pursue the proper corrections as we are united in this effort to keep the United States an autonomous fiscal body!
OUR VOICE. OUR ACTION. OUR NATION.
If you want to look at additional spending information that I used to draft this article here they are:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/29snapcurrpp.htm
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_spending
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
http://www.wrconference.net/
http://www.acf.hhs.gov
http://www.hhs.gov/
http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm
andrewsoption 
October 21st, 2013 at 5:24 pm
An interesting read.
October 21st, 2013 at 5:40 pm
Thank you Sir. It is a controversal topic, but I like raw verifiable numbers to speak for me. Thanks for the read!
October 21st, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Lazy and dependent. Two words that are used to describe a Welfare recipient. To believe that hype does not force it’s way into the minds of Americans and cause a riff of outrage towards those who are less fortunate, would be ignoring the gullible minds that so simply think that it’s a cake walk for anyone to get a job. It seems to me, that when a person gets a job, they have this rightful sense of accomplishment. They forget the struggles that they ever had and strap on the attitude that they did it and why can’t those lazy moochers do the same. Public opinion has been swayed by political figures in effort to demonize those who are in the 21% who receive some sort of assistance. It seems like it’s more of an agenda to trash Liberals, the so-called bleeding hearts that Republican/Conservatives seem to hate with such a passion that they are willing to lie and deceive the American people, just to have them side with them. They know that when they offer nothing to those in need, the ones they tell to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and make it on their own, they are irrelevant and they know that. The mantra is this- you are a lazy, unmotivated leech to society that’s draining this country economically and creating a generation of gimme gimmes. The truth could be further from that and I will further discuss this.
The federal outlays for the fiscal year of 2014 show that the budget is set to have only 10% percent of the budget spent on Welfare. The most money is being spent on healthcare (26%), then pensions (23%) and finally the other big one, military spending (22%). If we have money to blow on the next cruise missile that’ll eventually bomb a country and probably kill innocent civilians, then we have money to help out our fellow man in this country.
The one thing that will simply not be grasped by those who oppose the current state of welfare are correct in one manor- it is a system that could use reformation. That is not because there are a very minute number of individuals who are abusing the system. In fact, lets take a look at those numbers. Drug testing of recipients has caused a cheering applaud from opposers, mainly because the stereotype of welfare recipients are that they are societies losers who need to feed their drug habit with foodstamps. Utah just spent 25k on drug tests for their recipients. A whopping 2.5 percent was caught and the price of the tests exceeded the cost of the benefits. Republican enacted laws did nothing but cause humiliation and fiscal irresponsibility, even though that’s what they run on.
On to the states the real facts of the givers and takers. It’s ironic to me that the voices against welfare, are the ones who states are receiving more than they are giving. In the top ten of the biggest takers, 6 are Republican states who, for every dollar they are taxed, they receive more in return. I only bring this up because of the current state of the welfare mantra coming from the right.
As of 2012, the poverty rate in this country was 15% or 46.5 million that are living in poverty. So the amount of people on benefits lines up clearly with how many are in poverty. Income inequality is at it’s highest, ever. Over the last 30 years, corporate profits have been at a 300% raise. While these raises have helped out these companies in many ways, it has not benefited the working man and woman. As these profits have gone up for these companies, the wages for the employees have stayed the same. If the wages were to move up with the profit of the companies, minimum wage would be an estimated 21$ an hour. Currently, anyone working a minimum wage job, cannot afford to live in ANY state simply from that job. Multiple jobs are needed to live comfortably. It is no secret to the reason why there are almost 50 million on assistance and almost 50 million in poverty. With the outsourcing of jobs, low wages and lets not forget about the worst recession since the Great Depression, it’s no wonder that we are in the place we are. It’s not the ones receiving benefits who are at fault. Sure, a sense of personal responsibility is required, but you can’t blame someone who can’t find work because their job was given to a country where sweat shops continue to be ran and their wages are so low that they have to apply for assistance.
In conclusion, I find it insensitive and selfish to ignore the state of this country and the hard times that many are going through. The solution to our problem is not to cut these programs, but to start from the top with the supposed “job creators” and find a solution that will benefit those in poverty. This continuance of the idea that people on welfare are lazy and worthless has to stop. We can’t even realize that everyone goes through a tight spot. Yes, there will be people who feed from the government. But most of us that have ever asked for help, repay it by becoming a member of society that contributes and gives back. Without help, you WILL see angst in low income communities and just like 3rd world countries that are dirt poor, there will be crimes committed out of desperation. One last thing, this thing about “Get a job, you lazy mooch” is ridiculous. We are still coming out of a recession and it’s ignorant to say that when you know, there is still a need for plenty of jobs as our unemployment rate is still at 7.3 percent.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/06/16/red-states-are-the-real-welfare-states/
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_budget_2012_4.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2012/highlights.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/30/the-myth-of-welfare-and-drug-use.html
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/is-your-state-a-net-giver-or-taker-of-federal-taxes/
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865567225/Skyrocketing-income-inequality-in-America-over-the-past-30-years.html
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
October 21st, 2013 at 7:26 pm
A truly well crafted rebuttal to my prospective. The point of ‘the poverty rate in this country was 15% or 46.5 million that are living in poverty is a compelling attribute, but I say this ” is Entitlement programs the answer” I say no and you state that company profits are are 300% and that is another issue with America but not an attributer to current Welfare statistics. Job creation starts with lower cost to employ and innovation through new technology. You have to stop and look at budget; we have to begin cutting government spending or this Nation will never turn away from the direction it is heading. Americans Need work I know this we all do, but most are not willing to engage in open sectors because of the fiscal decencies of the job as most states the Welfare rate per hour is at an average of $11.50 an hour well above the wage they would receive for a single job, but are not willing to get a second job to make up the difference (I have gone to college full-time and worked a full-time job for 3 years now to make up for wage loss, and currently looking for a second job on top of the previously mentioned) You have to work hard as we allowed our leaders to be fiscally irresponsible – that is on us. It takes hard work and the American government does not owe a worker compensation but opportunity to work hard. I enjoyed your argument and it is valid to your prospective of America owes Citizens wages. Welfare is a great program but it has grown to large, and has a strong ramification to America Fiscally. IT is time we targeted the American Leaders that have caused the wage disproportion not increase the budget for entitlements – it is a band aid not a reputable solution. We need Accountability for fiscal irregularities before we strike the match on additional spending on social programs.
October 21st, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Here’s a funny video with some good points. Just happened to come across this.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/429084/september-16-2013/the-word—the-guilted-age?xrs=synd_facebook_102113_cn_2
October 21st, 2013 at 8:17 pm
For those that are following the otherside of this arguement is above. I will always promote passionate conversation on this site as this is how we fix this country. coversation turns to action as long as a passionate person is partaking in it! Read both sides and see how it registers to your current believes and make a rationale opinion on the facts.