Posted on 12/30/2017 7:16:37 PM PST by spintreebob
Is a low income or prolonged unemployment truly cause for financial stress? According to one study, not really. In some states, public assistance programs, or welfare, could pay more than full-time, minimum-wage jobs.
Cato Institute’s 2013 Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off study totaled the welfare benefits offered in each state and compared that value with the wages workers would need to earn in order to have an equivalent take-home income. Cato found for long-term dependents, welfare actually pays pretty well. The study examined the package for a single mother with two children, who could use programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps); Medicaid; housing assistance; utility assistance; and Women, Infants, and Children.
The results? Recipients of this assistance earned more than the average pre-tax, first-year wage for a teacher in 11 states and more than the starting wage for a secretary in 39 states. This means welfare beneficiaries could make a better living off public assistance programs than they would working full-time jobs at minimum wage in many states — prompting the study to infer that many are likely to choose welfare over work should this trend continue.
But we took the results of this report a bit further to see which states have the biggest gap between the hourly minimum wage equivalent welfare recipients get and the state-mandated amount. When broken down into an hourly wage equivalent, we found the welfare package exceeded minimum-wage jobs in 34 states, as of their 2017 minimum wages. On the other hand, in states, such as Maine, Texas, Florida, and Mississippi, working a minimum-wage job was more profitable than a welfare package. But they’re really just outliers.
Unfortunately, the pay gaps are larger than you could ever imagine. Here are the top 15 states where welfare recipients are paid more than minimum wage. (Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina were omitted from The Cheat Sheet’s analysis, as they do not currently have state-mandated minimum wages.)
Currently we penalize the working poor for working. Iti is their money.
Currently we reward those to scam the system.
We should reverse these incentives.
15. Pennsylvania: $6.53 per hour difference
Total welfare benefits package: $29,817
Pre-tax wage equivalent: $28,670
Hourly wage equivalent: $13.78
State hourly minimum wage for 2017: $7.25
Others can post #14 through # 1
One state per click. No thanks.
Yep.
Clickbait.
it is important that “infrastructure” be paid for. I want to seriously suggest that is be paid for by reducing welfare. With our new economy it is time to MAKE AMERICANS WORK AGAIN!!
Then these people room together and once you get 3 or 4 per house, they live a 6 figure lifestyle at our expense. It needs to stop.
High tax states won’t have any rich people to tax..They all moved and the poor find without taxpayers, state gov’t has no money...Then they start cutting bennies to everyone...Unions,illegals,poor etc
MAWA!
Here’s a direct link to the referenced 2013 Cato report....
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/the_work_versus_welfare_trade-off_2013_wp.pdf
Cut back? ABOLISH. ALL. WELFARE.
Govt has no authority, no ‘moral compass’, to bequeath ‘charity’ by end of the gun; it is *NOT* ‘their’ $$\property to be giving to another.
Restore the 5th & 13th to ALL.
........The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work.
Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 per hour......
https://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/work-versus-welfare-trade
#1 Hawaii
Total welfare benefits package: $49,175
Pre-tax wage equivalent: $60,590
Hourly wage equivalent: $29.13
State hourly minimum wage for 2017: $9.25
It pays in many states to be an uneducated, unskilled bum.
Let’s make govt live within their own means. Oh, that’s right, they don’t produce anything but misery for others.
Sickening. There are PLENTY of jobs out there.
Yup. Welfare is often a trap whereby if you try to get off it, your net income plummets - making it practically impossible to escape dependency.
Details momentarily escape me, but: there was some state where going from a $12/hr job + entitlements required reaching $36/hr just to break even without entitlements. As one’s earnings rose from the former, entitlements rapidly were cut off, severing almost completely around $16/hr. Result was entrapping the poor, punishing them if they tried to improve their lot thru personal effort rather than further abuse of the system.
No wonder those advocating a rising minimum wage _never_ spoke of it going above $15/hr - if it did, those whose dependency they sought would discover how the system was deliberately stacked against them. Above $15/hr would, in the world of entitlements, actually destroy most whom it purported to assist.
The differential is even higher when one factors in time lost in preparing for, transiting to and from, unpaid lunch/ break time, costs associated with transit to/from work, unpaid FMLA used, etc. Let us also not forget sales taxes paid, gasoline taxes, internet/cell phone hidden taxes (vs free phones/ internet access). Also free health care, school lunch/breakfast/after school programs (tutoring).
A person on welfare in HUD housing (usually with minimal education/job skills) would need to truly earn about 60-70,000 before taxes to be even with the board as well as hive up all the free time. Talk about a busted program!
Build the wall!
Deport all illegals!
Restrict immigration!
No Anchor babies!
No Chain migration!
Triple tax breaks to businesses to train and hire those on welfare that are able to work - they will find and hire the best educators ( the ones who left a broken public educational system) and revolutionize training a new workforce for America!
Hire American First, Second, Third, then perhaps H1B
For those unwilling to retrain, 40 hrs week public service (sweep streets, or in Denver scoop poop) or lose bennies and children.
Tough love, but within five years a nation of prideful citizens. MAGA !
3 New Jersey: $12.45 per hour difference
2. Massachusetts: $13.30 per hour difference
1. Hawaii: $19.88 per hour difference
I’d like to see the numbers on ‘disability’ - that’s the newest welfare...
“The current welfare system provides such a
high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work. Welfare currently pays more than
a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 per hour.”
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/the_work_versus_welfare_trade-off_2013_wp.pdf
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