I have been thinking a lot about welfare and US citizen's perceptions of who is on welfare. I would love to see someone do a study on how much money we think we spend on welfare, who we think is on welfare, who we think is on food stamps, how long we think they are on them versus the reality. I have a feeling, judging off of posts I'm seeing on social media, that people think there are huge numbers of welfare queens.
Lets take a look at the facts.
4.1% of the US population is on Welfare. Not including food stamps or unemployment insurance the US government spends 131.9 billion on welfare. Only 19.6% of of welfare recipients are on welfare for longer than 5 years. In 2011 14% of the US population was on food stamps. The US government spent 71.8 billion on the food stamp program. In order to qualify for food stamps you can not make more than $1000/month. The average monthly benefit was $133.85. 47% of people who were on food stamps in 2010 were under 18 and 8% were the elderly. Less than 10% of people on food stamps are also on welfare.
Sources
http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/
http://www.statisticbrain.com/food-stamp-statistics/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/2010CharacteristicsSummary.pdf
Are there welfare queens out there? Of course there are! Does it piss me off that people have learned to game the system and are sitting around on their asses while I'm working mine off? Hell yes it does! But the reality is that the number of people who are on welfare for a long time is low and a lot of those are people who do have a legitimate need. Are there more reforms we can make to welfare and food stamps? Of course there are. But before we get our collective panties in a bunch over a few pieces of shit, lets get realistic about who really is on welfare and food stamps. Welfare, food stamps and unemployment are meant to be safety nets and not safety trampolines. The fact is that the majority of people really do use them as nets.
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