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 