When was the last time you stopped to think about how much the government spends on welfare?
Most people probably don’t think about it too much, but we bet even for those who do, they don’t know how much their government spends, much less what the money actually pays for.
That’s why we created a new map showing you how much each state spends on the public dole.
Our viz takes U.S. Census Bureau data from GoBankingRates to create a map for the entire country. Each bubble represents a state, and the size of the bubble corresponds to the size of the public expenditure on public welfare. We then color-coded each circle according to the size of the expense. Shades of blue mean that the state spends relatively little money, but pink and red indicate a higher-than-average amount. There’s a lot that you can quickly learn by breaking mapping public welfare expenses in this war.
First off, what is public welfare? This can be a controversial topic with a lot of stereotypes, so let’s get our definitions straight. If you rely on public welfare, then you turn to the government for help with paying your basic necessities, like food, housing and healthcare. The federal government runs programs that provide these types of things, and to varying degrees, so do some states. As you can clearly see, some places are more generous than others.
California is the obvious standout on the West Coast, dropping north of $100 billion on public assistance. Texas is the only other Western state with over $30 billion of expenditures, followed by Washington at under $12 billion.
There’s a significant cluster of high-spending states across the Northeast, including New York ($61.4B) and Pennsylvania ($26.8B). Florida stands out in the South at over $27B, thanks in large part to its retirement communities. There’s also a cluster of states in the Upper Midwest in light pink, where there a lot of old manufacturing cities.
We should also point out the states with much smaller expenditures, stretching across the Midwest and into the deep South. The simplest explanation for the lack of huge welfare budgets in these states has to do with geography: there just aren’t a lot of big cities in places like Iowa and Alabama compared to other states. This helps explain why California and New York spend so much on welfare. They rank first and fourth as the most populous states.
Here’s a straightforward list of the top ten states with the highest expenditures on public welfare. Note the enormous difference between California and New York and the rest of the country.
1. California - $103 Billion
2. New York - $61.4 Billion
3. Texas - $35.4 Billion
4. Florida - $27.2 Billion
5. Pennsylvania - $26.7 Billion
6. Illinois - $21 Billion
7. Ohio - $20 Billion
8. Massachusetts - $18.6 Billion
9. New Jersey - $17.3 Billion
10. Michigan - $16.3 Billion
Here’s an interesting fact for you. The top ten states listed above spend more on public welfare ($346.9B) than all of the bottom forty states (plus the District of Columbia) combined ($262.7B).
Regardless of how populated any particular state is, you want to pay attention to these numbers because they foreshadow future budget problems.
When you consider the fact that many states run operating deficits and have enormous debt problems, you begin to wonder if some of these numbers are sustainable for the long term.
The greatest intellectual accomplishment of the laissez-faire liberal theorists was the recognition of the “hard” and “soft” institutions that are crucial prerequisites of productive accomplishment and material prosperity. The hard institutions include private property rights, market prices, and sound money. The soft institutions include those that reinforce values such as prudence, thrift, resourcefulness, innovative courage, and respect for success.
However, this accomplishment was accompanied by a proportionately great intellectual error - the belief that these institutions can be safeguarded exclusively by monopolistic apparatus of aggressive violence, commonly known as states. Since states necessarily parasitize on the productive output of market society, the belief that they are necessary for its emergence, let alone that they can remain “minimal” after its emergence, is fatally misguided. On the contrary, it appears perfectly predictable that they will grow in step with the increase in market output.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story. As powerful as states may be in terms of sheer physical force, their survival is ultimately rooted in favorable public opinion, and the best way to secure such opinion is to share their plunder as widely as possible. Thus, with sufficiently wealthy hosts at their disposal, states invariably turn into “welfare” states. And it is at this point that they start sawing off the branch on which they are sitting.
With productive achievement institutionally separated from consumption opportunities, the wealth-generating soft institutions start to erode particularly fast. When there is great abundance all around, but it seems that it can be enjoyed without putting in any productive effort, increasingly many of those who do not so enjoy it come to believe that abundance is a free good, and that the only reason why it is not free for them is because someone unfairly withholds it from them.
In other words, the prevalence of welfare-statist “redistribution” spells the death of economic thinking – that is, thinking in terms of resource scarcity, opportunity costs, and incentive structures. This temporarily strengthens the state even further – since at this point the state immediately steps in as an entity that is able and willing to punish the malevolent withholders – but it also further accelerates the death of the goose that lays its golden eggs.
In addition, great abundance coupled with the prevalence of statist “redistribution” encourages the overall infantilization of culture. In the absence of sound economic thinking, which explains why particular resources end up in the hands of particular members of extended social order, there appears a tendency to invent arbitrary pseudo-reasons as to why one’s position in this order is not as satisfactory as one would like it to be.
One is then encouraged to, for example, invent various contrived identities that are supposed to account for “economic discrimination” of those who are unlucky to possess them. This leads to adopting a crude, childish worldview whereby every aspect of reality is somehow linked to one’s identity and its supposed disadvantages, and whereby the whole realm of social intercourse is reduced to a zero-sum clash between identity-based classes. Needless to say, this creates a perfect environment for accelerated capital consumption.
Another aspect of the infantilization typical of an affluent society mired in welfare statism is that it replaces eudaimonism with hedonism – instead of promoting the pursuit of happiness, it promotes the demand for pleasure. Happiness is increasingly not an option, since it is accessible exclusively to the rapidly diminishing group of those who put serious intellectual, moral, and entrepreneurial effort into seeking it. Instead, the beneficiaries of the welfare state are satisfied with the dubious pleasures of hand-to-mouth existence sponsored by legal plunder, which not only rapidly impoverishes society in material terms, but also steadily erodes its intellectual and moral quality. This, in turn, makes restoring the wealth-generating soft institutions and harmonizing them with the relevant hard institutions all the more difficult.
Thus, it becomes clear that the welfare state is not something that can be grudgingly tolerated as merely a parasitic nuisance. It is overoptimistic to assume that the remaining vestiges of free-market entrepreneurialism will always be able to outpace its insatiable drive toward capital consumption. Nor is it prudent to believe that the hard institutions of private property rights and market prices will be able to survive, let alone do their job effectively, with their underlying cultural foundations eroded to the core. And it is evident that welfare statism strikes at the latter at least as hard, if not more so, than it does at the former.
In other words, in the context of getting rid of all traces of statist “redistribution”, there is no such thing as acting too quickly. As long as the welfare state operates unabated, the wealthier society becomes, the faster it moves toward the point of no return, beyond which the forces of capital consumption irreversibly overcome the forces of capital accumulation.
Furthermore, one has to bear in mind that in the context of stopping the former, what matters is not just formal institutional changes, but also – probably more so – far more intangible normative corrections. This is why, in addition to promoting economic knowledge in the spirit of Ludwig von Mises, we should also promote standards of moral and cultural excellence, as epitomized by the leading figures of the Austrian tradition and other individuals cognizant of the normative underpinnings of the free and prosperous commonwealth.
Leftists are constantly reminding of us of the merits of welfare. They tell us that without the help of taxpayer funded handouts, millions of Americans will starve or be left homeless. There’s no doubt that some people really do need help, but this black and white view of welfare doesn’t paint the full picture. Conservatives and libertarians have suspected for decades that many of the people on welfare are actually mooching off of the system. So to reconcile the need to help people who are helpless with the very really problem of people abusing the system, they’ve come up with a great compromise.
In regards to food stamps, they’ve suggested that we offer food assistance on the condition that the recipients are working. Or at the very least, that they volunteer or community service or are making an effort to train themselves for a new job. So what happens in states that have work requirements for food stamp recipients?
Alabama began 2017 by requiring able-bodied adults without children in 13 counties to either find a job or participate in work training as a condition for continuing to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
According to AL.com, the number of those recipients declined from 5,538 to 831 between Jan. 1 and the beginning of May – an 85 percent drop.
Similar changes were implemented in select counties in Georgia and by the end of the first three months, the number of adults receiving benefits in three participating counties dropped 58 percent, according to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported that in 21 additional counties that restored the work requirement, there was a 62 percent drop in SNAP participants.
Of course many leftists will try to shoot holes in this data, by suggesting that perhaps many of these people were working unofficial jobs that paid under the table. Because of that, they were already doing the best they could, and the government cut off their benefits when they couldn’t prove that they were working. The only problem with that assumption, is that we know exactly what happens to people who have to choose between getting cut off from food stamps, and finding a job. Statistics show that they choose to find a job, and their incomes go up drastically. They really weren’t working in the first place.
In October 2014, LePage announced that able-bodied adults would have to find work, spend 20 hours per week in a work program, or perform community service for six hours a week.
Food stamp participation declined 14.5 percent from 235,771 in January 2014 to 201,557 in January 2015, according to the state.
An analysis of a group of 7,000 Mainers who left SNAP in 2014 found their total earnings increased from $3.85 million in the third quarter 2014 to $8.24 million in the last quarter of 2015.
Kansas saw a 75 percent decline after implementing work requirements in 2013. In addition, nearly 60 percent of former beneficiaries found employment within 12 months and their incomes rose by an average of 127 percent per year, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability.
The left will never admit it, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that many of the people receiving welfare benefits are able bodied, and fully capable of finding a job. We know this, because when they’re given the choice between losing a couple hundred dollars per month in benefits, and finding a job that will earn them enough money to not need benefits, they choose to find work. We’re subsiding millions of people who just don’t want to work.
And the other detail that the left will conveniently overlook, is that these people are basically siphoning off money from folks who are genuinely in a bad financial place. There would be more money for people who are actually poor.
This is money that could be spent on those who work their hands to the bone every day to provide for their families, and still can’t pay their bills. Or it could be spent on people who simply need to make ends meet while they’re between jobs. If not for these welfare queens, the government could provide more benefits to people who actually need help. That would lift them out of poverty faster, which could reduce the taxpayer’s burden in the long run.
In short, there’s a lot of people taking advantage of welfare programs like food stamps, which takes money away from the people who really need help in our society. And the left’s welfare policies are enabling them.
This article was written by Tyler Durden and originally published at Zero Hedge.
Editor’s Comment: Quite obviously, President Trump has been cleaning house at furious pace during his first week in office, and he isn’t done yet. Early reports on a leaked memo suggest that Trump’s next target via executive order will be to cut off immigrants ‘likely’ to need public welfare assistance both for current and would-be immigrants, legal or not. If put into full force, this denial of incentive would likely do much more to curb illegal immigration than even a wall or mass deportations ever could.
By curbing or stopping taxpayer benefits handed out to those coming into the country, Trump could kill the incentive for mass waves of immigration. It would mean those coming would have to have to make their own way, and the huge burden on Americans would be relieved. It is a proposal that, perhaps surprisingly, both Bill Clinton and Ron Paul have put forward over the years. However, no official announcement have yet been made about whether the language would really implement this, and when it would come down.
Leaked Executive Order Reveals Trump Crackdown On Immigrant Welfare
“We are a nation of immigrants.. but we are a nation of laws”
“Our nation is rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country…
Illegal immigrants take jobs from citizens or legal immigrants, they impose burdens on our taxpayers…
That is why we are doubling the number of border guards, deporting more illegal immigrants than ever before, cracking down on illegal hiring, barring benefits to illegal aliens, and we will do more to speed the deportation of illegal immigrants arrest for crimes…
It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that has occurred in the last few years.. and we must do more to stop it.”
And following Ron Paul’s advice this week that the solution to really addressing the problem of illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and the threat of cross-border terrorism is clear:
Remove the welfare magnet that attracts so many to cross the border illegally, stop the 25 year US war in the Middle East, and end the drug war that incentivizes smugglers to cross the border.
The various taxpayer-funded programs that benefit illegal immigrants in the United States, such as direct financial transfers, medical benefits, food assistance, and education, cost an estimated $100 billion dollars per year. That is a significant burden on citizens and legal residents. The promise of free money, free food, free education, and free medical care if you cross the border illegally is a powerful incentive for people to do so. It especially makes no sense for the United States government to provide these services to those who are not in the US legally.
The Washington Post reports that The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require public assistance, as well as to deport — when possible — immigrants already living in the United States who depend on taxpayer help, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Washington Post.
A second draft order under consideration calls for a substantial shake up in the system through which the United States administers immigrant and nonimmigrant visas overall, with the aim of tightly controlling who enters the country, and who can enter the workforce, and to reduce the social services burden on U.S. taxpayers.
The drafts are circulating among administration officials, and it is unclear whether President Trump has decided to move forward with them or when he might sign them if he does decide to put them in place.
While Trump’s immigration ban last week focused on national security and preventing terrorism, the new draft orders would be focused on Trump’s campaign promises to protect American workers and to create jobs, immediately restricting the flow of immigrants and temporary laborers into the U.S. workforce.
The administration has blamed immigrants who end up receiving U.S. social services for eating up federal resources, and it has said immigrant workers contribute to unemployment among Americans who were born in the United States.
“Our country’s immigration laws are designed to protect American taxpayers and promote immigrant self sufficiency. Yet households headed by aliens are much more likely than those headed by citizens to use Federal means-tested public benefits,” reads one draft order obtained by The Post, titled “Executive Order on Protecting Taxpayer Resources by Ensuring Our Immigration Laws Promote Accountability and Responsibility.” The draft order provides no evidence to support the claim that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare benefits, and there is no consensus among experts about immigration’s impact on such benefits or American jobs.
WaPo goes on to note that the administration would be seeking to “deny admission to any alien who is likely to become a public charge” and develop standards for “determining” whether an immigrant can be deported after five years if that person receives a certain amount of public assistance, including Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Medicaid.
The second order, titled “Executive Order on Protecting American Jobs and Workers by Strengthening the Integrity of Foreign Worker Visa Programs” calls for “eliminating” the “jobs magnet” that is driving illegal immigration to the United States, according to a copy obtained by The Post.
The order would rescind any work visa provisions for foreign nationals found not to be in “the national interest” or in violation of U.S. immigration laws.
Economists are divided on the extent to which illegal immigration impacts wages, but generally find that immigration is good for the economy, including the immigration of low-skilled workers.
“The unlawful employment of aliens has had a devastating impact on the wages and jobs of American workers, especially low-skilled, teenage, and African American and Hispanic workers,” the draft order says.
But the CATO Institute claims “when you compare poor immigrants to poor natives, poor immigrants are less likely to use welfare, and when they do, the dollar value of the benefits they use is lower,” and The Migration Policy Institute claims that “refugee men are employed at a higher rate than their U.S.-born peers.”
Bear in ind this is WaPo unsubstantiated reports and The White House would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the orders, and White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about the drafts on Monday and Tuesday.
This article was written by Tyler Durden and originally published at Zero Hedge.
This article was written by Daisy Luther and originally published at DaisyLuther.com.
Editor’s Comment: It is difficult to say exactly how, or when, the next collapse will be triggered, but of course all the conditions are ripe for it.
What can be certain is that the technocrats intent on controlling the future are already engineering the post-collapse society. Many of the Davos elite have been pushing “universal basic income” for all countries across the globe, and are leading people not only into a digital grid where cash is banned, but also into a society where private property and ownership are outlawed.
They are designing a future in which you must borrow or rent everything you need from corporations or the government, if you are allowed to have them at all.
You Realize The Universal Basic Income Is Feudalism, Right?
by Daisy Luther
What does the future hold for average people?
Feudalism.
And they’ll welcome it with open arms, convinced that they are embracing a smart, fair system that eliminates poverty. The greed, entitlement, and lack of ambition that seems inherent in many people today will have them slipping on the yoke of servitude willingly.
Here’s what I mean.
Have you ever been around people who say things like,
“I can’t afford it, but I deserve it…”
“Having [fill in the blank with a material object] is a basic right…”
“Losing that right is okay with me because it’s for the greater good.”
But the thing is, what we “deserve” is the right to pursue our dreams freely.
We deserve what we earn.
We deserve to be secure in our life, liberty, and property.
We deserve the freedom to go about our lives and decisions as long as we aren’t harming the life, liberty, and property of others.
No one owes us anything other than that.
But quite a few people are ready to give up their freedom so that someone else can take care of them.
A lot of people disagree with that list of rights.
The idea of a universal basic income for all citizens has been catching on all over the world. Is it too crazy to believe in? We spoke to the author of a new book on the ins, outs, and utopian dreams of making basic income a reality.The basic income movement got a significant boost this week when the charity GiveDirectly announced that it will be pursuing a ten-year, $30 million pilot project giving a select group of Kenyan villagers a basic income and studying its effects. As an anti-poverty solution, universal basic income appeals to impoverished people in Africa, relatively well-off Scandinavians, and Americans automated out of their jobs alike.
Sure, money for nothing sounds great on the surface.
But what would the real result of a Universal Basic Income be?
Feudalism. Serfdom. Enslavement.
UBI would fast track us back to the feudalism of the Middle Ages. Sure, we’d be living in slick, modern micro-efficiencies instead of shacks. We’d have some kind of modern job instead of raising sheep for the lord of the manor.
But, in the end, we wouldn’t actually own anything because private property would be abolished for all but the ruling class. We’d no longer have the ability to get ahead in life. Our courses would be set for us and veering off of those courses would be harshly discouraged.
People will be completely dependent on the government and ruling class for every necessity: food, shelter, water, clothing. What better way to assert control than to make compliance necessary for survival?
Here’s a quick glimpse at peasant life in the Middle Ages, for comparison’s sake.
The period of history from the 5th to the 15th century was known as the Middle Ages. During this time, the law of the land in Europe was the “feudal system.” This system was the manner in which the upper 10% (the nobility) controlled the lower 90% (the serfs or peasants).
It is estimated that just over 90% of the population of Europe were peasants. Most peasants were basically slaves. They were provided with a small shelter on an inferior piece of land and the “protection” of the noble in charge of that area. In return, they worked for the estate, farming the land with no recompense, paying taxes and having no control over their lives. Some peasants were “free” and had small businesses: blacksmiths, carpenters, bakers, etc. They paid for the protection of the “Lord” with money, goods, and services.
Peasants had few rights. They could be taxed at any time, were obligated to use (and pay for) services of the manor like mills or large ovens, and had to request permission for marriages, change of locations or educating their children.
Each year, the peasant was required to give the best part of his harvest to the lord of the manor. The peasants were not allowed to own things that made their lives easier, like oxen or horses, for example. A peasant did not own the land on which he lived and was therefore obligated to live where he was told, grow what he was told, and farm in the manner in which he was told. They were not allowed to hunt on the lord’s land – poaching was an offense punishable by death. They were not permitted to cut trees for firewood but forced to gather fallen branches to stay warm. A peasant was not allowed to have real, effective weapons – those were reserved for the armies of the nobility, to keep the peasants in line and immediately quell any quest for dignity and independence.
Most of the peasants seemed content with the arrangement because they received security and safety from the Lord. He was obligated to protect them from marauders and barbarians and provide enough land for subsistence. (Learn more about feudalism here.)
People will be trapped into servitude because they feel entitled to a lifestyle.
Over the past years, the education has drummed a sense of entitlement into students. And now, world leaders are counting on using that feeling of entitlement to march society willingly right into a tiny gilded cage.
The World Economic Forum is held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. It is at this meeting where a couple thousand of the world’s top economic and political leaders meet to plot our future.
If you think I’m crazy for the comparison between UBI and serfdom, wait until you see this year’s vision for our future.
In her article, Auken idealizes feudalism, and the kinds of people who believe they “deserve” certain entitlements, like the UBI will welcome this loss of individuality and freedom with open arms.
Watch the video below. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
For more information about a futuristic feudal society, watch the documentary Obsolete, available for free with an Amazon Prime membership.
This article was written by Daisy Luther and originally published at DaisyLuther.com.
Daisy is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting, homeschooling blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, and the pursuit of liberty on her websites, The Organic Prepper and DaisyLuther.com, where this article first appeared. She is the author of 4 books and the co-founder of Preppers University, where she teaches intensive preparedness courses in a live online classroom setting. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
