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Americans' Stunning And Growing Dependence On Government Aid In Pictures
Mish Talk ^ | 10/02/2024 | Mike Shedlock

Posted on 10/02/2024 8:57:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

The number of counties dependent on government aid has surged over time. The lead chart shows political party affiliation.

The Wall Street Journal has a great article on the Growing Reliance of Americans Are Dependence on Government Aid over time. That is a free link.

Americans’ reliance on government support is soaring, driven by programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

That support is especially critical in economically stressed communities throughout the U.S., many of which lean Republican and are concentrated in swing states crucial in deciding the presidential election. Neither party has much incentive to dial back the spending.

The big reasons for this dramatic growth: A much larger share of Americans are seniors, and their healthcare costs have risen. At the same time, many communities have suffered from economic decline because of challenges including the loss of manufacturing, leaving government money as a larger share of people’s income in such places.

This spending accounts for a big and growing share of the national debt. But this year’s presidential candidates, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, have said little about reining it in. In fact, both have offered plans that would add to the costs. Trump would end taxes on Social Security benefits. Harris would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for lower-income workers and extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire, among other proposals.

The data help explain why. Though counties that rely significantly on government spending tend to be small, they are still home to nearly 22% of the U.S. population.

Counties at least 25 Percent Dependent on Government Aid

In 2000 there were about 300 countries dependent on Government assistance. Now there are nearly 2,000.

Battleground States

Many of the counties that rely heavily on government safety-net and social-program money have this in common: They are clustered in the battleground states that will decide the presidential election.

About 70% of counties in Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina are significantly reliant on the government income. So are nearly 60% of counties in Pennsylvania. In Arizona, 13 of the 15 counties are heavily reliant on safety-net income.

Measured another way, more than 44% of Michiganders live in counties that are significantly reliant on the government programs. In Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, more than a third of the populations live in such counties.

Spending on these programs has outpaced the income people earn from other sources, the EIG analysis shows. Meanwhile, pressure from a graying population won’t let up: By 2060, nearly a quarter of the U.S. will be at least 65, the Census Bureau projects.

Wow.

And Trump thinks Tariffs will help. All Tariffs will do is raise prices.

For discussion, please see Trump Claims Tariffs Will Reduce the Trade Deficit. Let’s Fact Check.

I will have a second article on tariffs and price impacts later this week.

Also see Ridiculous Answers from Harris and Trump Regarding Food Costs


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: dependence; government; states; wboopi
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To: DesertRhino

“dependent on government aid”

Look at Northern Virginia and Maryland on the map.

Supposedly not much “government aid” there.

But why do so many companies have offices there?

Do they make anything in those offices?

No! They’re lobbying for goodies from the government.


21 posted on 10/02/2024 9:31:23 AM PDT by packagingguy
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To: rlmorel

This is just an extension of the “red state moocher lie that Daniel Patrick Moynihan started and many liberal non profits have extended.


22 posted on 10/02/2024 9:31:48 AM PDT by unclebankster (Globalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Wonder why it's so damned hard for people to write literate headlines these days.

Reading that header I thought the article was going to be about federal subsidies to Hollywood movie studios.

23 posted on 10/02/2024 9:36:34 AM PDT by 4Runner (Watch. Wallet. Gun! Left Foot! Right Foot! Thank God For Guns!....Denny Crane)
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To: Twotone

Thank you


24 posted on 10/02/2024 9:38:52 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: Still Thinking
Heavy tariffs and free trade are both “good,” and they’re both “bad.” It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish as a matter of public policy.

If you want the most material possessions for the greatest number of people in your society, then “free trade” is the way to go.

If you want your domestic industries to thrive and you’re willing to accept lower living standards for your working population, then tariff protections are essential.

No matter what anyone with a political agenda tells you, you can’t have them both at the same time — unless you’re willing to accept massive fascist government intervention on both sides. This is how you end up with a federal government that is $35 trillion in debt.

25 posted on 10/02/2024 9:39:51 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Well, maybe I'm a little rough around the edges; inside a little hollow.” -- Tom Petty, “Rebels”)
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To: unclebankster

Yes...I believe that was the root of what I was referring to. As far as I am concerned, it is just another method they use to lie. There are plenty of receptive brains-full-of-mush out there, that is for sure.


26 posted on 10/02/2024 9:40:48 AM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s “THE MAP” again. If you know, you know.


27 posted on 10/02/2024 9:41:54 AM PDT by suthener ( )
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To: 4Runner
The original header from the article:

The Stunning and Growing Dependence on Government Aid in Pictures

28 posted on 10/02/2024 9:41:54 AM PDT by 4Runner (Watch. Wallet. Gun! Left Foot! Right Foot! Thank God For Guns!....Denny Crane)
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To: SeekAndFind

All. By. Design.


29 posted on 10/02/2024 9:44:07 AM PDT by CatOwner (Don't expect anyone, even conservatives, to have your back when the SHTF in 2021 and beyond.)
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To: Twotone

You beat me to it.


30 posted on 10/02/2024 9:47:37 AM PDT by just me (Trade your liberty for temporary safety. I will keep mine. My family doesn't fly a white flag.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I wonder if they are counting everyone on Medicare and SS as being *dependent* on the government.

We certainly aren’t but Medicare is forced onto you when you hit 65 and I paid into SS. Might as well collect while there’s still some left.

Of course, if the government put into practice policies that favored independence in financial responsibility, you’d see fewer people using the government.

There are always the lazy ones though, who just suck off the government teat because they can.


31 posted on 10/02/2024 9:49:37 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus”)
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To: Twotone

Same thoughts. Soc. Sec. isn’t aid, it’s what I paid into and am finally getting back.


32 posted on 10/02/2024 9:51:50 AM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: rlmorel

Using Social Security and Medicare will queer all these conversations.

Almost no one is interested in the 69 and 79 year old and whatever government program she is plugged into after a lifetime of working and living and raising a family and slogging the slog of life, but we are interested in the crippling largesse of dependency and government handouts to 19 and 29 and 39 year olds who are being mentally and emotionally (and politically) crippled and financially supported out of the productive life cycles and their useful participation in the nation’s health and growth.


33 posted on 10/02/2024 9:55:27 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: SeekAndFind

Measuring by counties is meaningless.

Van Horn county (or whatever it is called over near me) has maybe 100 people in it. Roughly 48% are illegal and 48% are drug addicts with 3 ranchers doing work.


34 posted on 10/02/2024 10:16:33 AM PDT by TheThirdRuffian (Orange is the new brown in)
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To: SeekAndFind; All
Thank you for referencing that article SeekAndFind.

"Americans' Stunning And Growing Dependence On Government Aid In Pictures"


FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

Vote-buying interpretations the Constitution's General Welfare Clause by desperate elite Democrats aside, it remains that the states have never expressly constitutionally given the unconstitutionally big federal government the specific power to tax and spend for national welfare of any kind.

Regarding growing dependence on corrupt federal government, Democratic and Republican Trump supporters need to support hopeful Trump 47 with a new Constitution-respecting Congress in November.

The new Congress needs to support Trump in leading the states to repeal Congress's 16th Amendment-powers (direct taxes) so that taxpayers struggling to eat and pay their bills will be better able to get themselves through difficult times. The 17th Amendment, popular voting for federal senators, can disappear too.

In fact, Justice Joseph Story had not only noted that the states have never expressly constitutionally given the big, bad feds the specific power to establish a national welfare program, but the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had likewise clarified that constitutional drafters had left the care of the people uniquely to the states, NOT the federal government.

Finally, let's not allow the anti-Trump media try to fade our memories of what we witnessed on July 13.


35 posted on 10/02/2024 10:22:53 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Twotone

Social Security isn’t government aid, it’s a return on the forced investment that everyone that worked paid into all their working years.

Of course, anybody collecting SS benefits that did NOT pay into it is on Government Aid.

Republicans talked about privatizing SS a couple of decades ago, and that would have been great. Of course, the left poo-poo’ed the idea since they wanted to use that money for THEIR projects (primarily, buying votes with other people’s money)


36 posted on 10/02/2024 10:25:21 AM PDT by meyer ("When, in the course of human events,....")
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To: SeekAndFind

Income tax is a tax on American labor. Tariffs are a tax on foreign labor. Tax the foreign labor, not the American labor.


37 posted on 10/02/2024 10:26:38 AM PDT by meyer ("When, in the course of human events,....")
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To: TheThirdRuffian

There’s a bigger reason why measuring by county is deceptive and meaningless. Some of the biggest government programs involve payments to retired people regardless of where they live — even if they were productive taxpayers for their entire working lives. So if I work in New York for 40 years and then retire in Florida, I was counted as a “taxpayer” in New York but I’m considered a “recipient of government aid” in Florida.


38 posted on 10/02/2024 10:26:46 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Well, maybe I'm a little rough around the edges; inside a little hollow.” -- Tom Petty, “Rebels”)
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To: SeekAndFind

COVID money sealed the deal for the communists in D.C. After taking over the schools and state goverments the commies figured out how to print up money and have the cities and counties sign their independence away to be beholden to the rules of the federal government.


39 posted on 10/02/2024 10:31:45 AM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: sauropod

bkmk


40 posted on 10/02/2024 10:33:21 AM PDT by sauropod ("This is a time when people reveal themselves for who they are." James O'Keefe Ne supra crepidam)
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