Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which Is the Biggest Moocher State of All?

world press ^ | January 14, 2017 | Dan Mitchell

[expat_panama]

As far as I'm concerned this take is bogus --that while figures don't lie, liars will figure. The reason his California looked more self-reliant than Texas is because he decided to take fed welfare to states as % of other state taxes.  California has very high taxe and those in Texas are low so naturally the % fed$/tax is lower in California.  Reality is that California is the highest recipient of federal $ of the entire country --here's the top 10 and these ten take in more than all the other 40 combined:

Note that Calif's huge population affects the numbers a lot, but even on a per person basis they take in more than Texas.  New York (of course) is a big 'moocher' w/ that method. 

		Fed. Funding	Population	Fed $/Person
1	California	63,516,604	38,332,521	$1.66
2	New York	49,114,188	19,651,127	$2.50
3	Texas	40,561,370	26,448,193	$1.53
4	Florida	25,801,529	19,552,860	$1.32
5	Ohio	22,350,068	11,570,808	$1.93
6	Pennsylvania	21,868,995	12,773,801	$1.71
7	Illinois	18,227,252	12,882,135	$1.41
8	Michigan	17,929,672	9,895,622	$1.81
9	New Jersey	16,049,091	8,899,339	$1.80
10	North Carolina	15,643,257	9,848,060	$1.59

 

fwiw, the national average fed$/person is $1.75, and here's my map of $/person:

[libertarian27]

I bet if the funding was broken out by county it would closely mimic the 2016 Election Map

[Jim Pelosi]

Maybe because the industries were gutted in these states?

[Aevery_Freeman]

Thank you! I had just thought to myself, "Hey, that's not the right way to look at it." when I saw your spot on analysis.

Thanks for doing the legwork to produce the map.

I would also like to see a net per Capita analysis.

[Salman]

Correlates with poverty.

[libertarian27]

Partial county ‘SNAP participation’ map from 2011
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap-data-system/go-to-the-map/
It somewhat lines up with the 2016 election.
(why does the gov’t take so long to generate data?)

[D Rider]

They just said federal dollars. Montana gets large federal highway dollars per capita. To make a judgement we need to see what funding is sent to the state not just $ per person. It could tell a completely different story.

[VaRepublican]

It would be fun to see this broken down by counties.

[VaRepublican]

Sorry was reading and typing while you posted. leave it to Freepers.

[proxy_user]

The biggest factor in these calculations is not the money out, but the money in. The bulk of Federal taxes are paid by the top 10% in income. This is a household income over $120K. The vast bulk of households like this are located in New York and California, where millions of people make these incomes.

[VaRepublican]

https://www.usaspending.gov/Pages/Default.aspx

[D Rider]

This is a purposely misleading article. it doesn’t explain what’s going on or why the disparities . Check this article out it may help: https://mises.org/blog/which-states-rely-most-federal-spending

[libertarian27]

It’s almost impossible to find complete data on gov’t sites, here’s a site that covers a bunch of federal programs 2012-14
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2013/federal-spending-your-state-2012-2014/

[bert]

as an interesting aside, a hospital in Pikeville KY is binge advertising for RN’s. The base salary for experienced RN’s + bonusnearly gets to the $120 k . Pikeville has a population of around 7,000 and closed coal mines

[Baldwin77]

This should be an interesting discussion. I’ve seen this posted on FB by Liberals. Didn’t know exactly how to respond.

[expat_panama]

posted on FB by Liberals. Didn’t know exactly how to respond.

Yeah, I had to do a double take on it too but the minute I saw that they were talking about fed$/total revenue I knew that Cal only looked good --but wasn't.  Of course we all know that these facts will never make any difference to the libs at Facebook; it's just that what's important here is we don't want any of the sane states to think they need to change policy.

[D Rider]

Excellent. Now if someone had the time to break those tables down into per capita, then we. Could start to get a better feel for how the money is spent.

[Adder]

Um...most of the states mentioned have lower state taxes so the federal share of their budgets is much higher, as apposed to a California which taxes the air breathed and the urine pissed.

Like your chart sez.

[The Toll]

I can’t seem to find the data explaining exactly what is “intergovernmental revenue” vs. “aid”.

The article explains that “intergovernmental revenue” is what is used as one of the criteria for expenditures to these States.

If it is a simple matter of Fed Tax in vs. Fed Tax out then there are several factors to include. Ship building is expensive and you will hardly find more veterans per square mile anywhere in the world than you will in these “Red States”.

[expat_panama]

Whoa --tx fer the fantastic links!    If I'd have known about them earlier it would have saved me a lot of clicking but these are great--

--and:

There's so much info in the National Priorities site that puts paid to the simplistic nonsense that the "moocher" piece was pushing.

thanks again!