Welfare.. a weight on the Economy?

[General_XVI]

Whenever you see a pie graph that is meant to represent all government spending. You will probably see a graph like the one at US Government Spending or the one at Wikipedia which shows that “Welfare” spending is 12% of the federal budget. The problem with that is that the government has no spending category called “Welfare”. Therefore, what somebody calls “Welfare” is somewhat subjective and undefinable.

The Office of Management and Budget(OMB) does have a spending category called “Income Security”. Internet government spending just take that entire category and divides it by total spending to get 12%. In 2009 accounts categorized as “income security” accounted for 533$ billion in spending. According to the government printing offices’ historical tables, table 3.2: Oulays by Function and Subfunction, that spending is broken down into 6 distinct subfunctions.

General retirement and disability insurance
Federal employee retirement and disability
Unemployment compensation
Housing assistance
Food and nutrition assistance
Other income security
But 3 out of the 6 income security subfunctions go to pensions and unemployment – things that must be earned by working and paying into.

The 3 remaining subfunctions cost a combined 284$ billion dollars, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story. Over the last week I’ve taken a more detailed look at each of these subfunctions to get an idea of how that money is spent. What I found was that even in the remaining subfunctions, Food and Nutrition, Housing Assistance, and Other that not all of that spending was spent on the poor.

When I analyzed the “Other” income security subfunction, I graphed how that money was spent by categorizing that spending into 4 different categories:

Not Directed at Poor\Earned: Welfare not targeted to poor. The poor may use these programs, but just being poor will not qualify you for these programs.
Direct: Welfare that’s Direct money to the poor
In-direct: Money paid to 3rd parties on behalf of the poor
Poor & Middle Class: These are tax rebates that poor and most middle class people qualify for and use.
I would now like to extend that analysis to the entire 533$ billion that the U.S. government spent on “income security”. Here’s how the numbers break down.

So tell me Is welfare bringing the economy down in you eyes?

 

[VaYank5150]

Whenever you see a pie graph that is meant to represent all government spending. You will probably see a graph like the one at US Government Spending or the one at Wikipedia which shows that “Welfare” spending is 12% of the federal budget. The problem with that is that the government has no spending category called “Welfare”. Therefore, what somebody calls “Welfare” is somewhat subjective and undefinable.

The Office of Management and Budget(OMB) does have a spending category called “Income Security”. Internet government spending just take that entire category and divides it by total spending to get 12%. In 2009 accounts categorized as “income security” accounted for 533$ billion in spending. According to the government printing offices’ historical tables, table 3.2: Oulays by Function and Subfunction, that spending is broken down into 6 distinct subfunctions.

General retirement and disability insurance
Federal employee retirement and disability
Unemployment compensation
Housing assistance
Food and nutrition assistance
Other income security
But 3 out of the 6 income security subfunctions go to pensions and unemployment – things that must be earned by working and paying into.

The 3 remaining subfunctions cost a combined 284$ billion dollars, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story. Over the last week I’ve taken a more detailed look at each of these subfunctions to get an idea of how that money is spent. What I found was that even in the remaining subfunctions, Food and Nutrition, Housing Assistance, and Other that not all of that spending was spent on the poor.

When I analyzed the “Other” income security subfunction, I graphed how that money was spent by categorizing that spending into 4 different categories:

Not Directed at Poor\Earned: Welfare not targeted to poor. The poor may use these programs, but just being poor will not qualify you for these programs.
Direct: Welfare that’s Direct money to the poor
In-direct: Money paid to 3rd parties on behalf of the poor
Poor & Middle Class: These are tax rebates that poor and most middle class people qualify for and use.
I would now like to extend that analysis to the entire 533$ billion that the U.S. government spent on “income security”. Here’s how the numbers break down.

So tell me Is welfare bringing the economy down in you eyes?

Exactly who says that welfare is bringing down the economy? It may be helping to raise our country's governmental debt, but weighing down the economy?

 

[bripat9643]

Exactly who says that welfare is bringing down the economy? It may be helping to raise our country's governmental debt, but weighing down the economy?

Paying useless parasites to do nothing is always a drag on the economy. Carry a 20 lb boulder around on your shoulders and tell me whether it drags you down.

 

[Dragon]

Paying useless parasites to do nothing is always a drag on the economy.

Most of those useless parasites are old people who would otherwise be supported by their families -- since it's a rare and nasty family that would let Granny starve -- and that would be a bigger one.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Holy fucking shit! Someone has FINALLY attempted to answer THE unanswered question.

Thank you. Really. Thank you.

 

[General_XVI]

Im saying that in order to fun government programs we need to unfortunately make sacrifices...... and yes im republican .. funny isnt it

 

[Charles_Main]

Welfare.. a weight on the Economy?

Of course it is. Not every Dollar taken in For Welfare actually ends up in the hands of People to spend. A large % of it is eaten up by Bureaucrats at every Level. Then there is the Fraud, Abuse, and waste. The Government is very Inefficient. You can't simply say we spend X amount on Welfare but it's not a drain because it goes to people who spend it. The Truth is Over Half of it does not go to people who spend it. Every Dollar taken out of the Economy not put Directly back in is a Drain on the Economy. Period.