Government Dependents Outnumber Those With Private Sector Jobs In 11 U.S. States
By Michael, on December 26th, 2012
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-number-of-people-on-welfare-exceeds-the-number-of-people-with-jobs-in-11-states
America is rapidly becoming a nation of takers. An increasing number of Americans expect the government to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, and they expect the government to dig into the pockets of others in order to pay for it all. This philosophy can be very seductive, but what happens when the number of takers eventually outnumbers the number of producers? In 11 different U.S. states, the number of government dependents exceeds the number of private sector workers. This list of states includes some of the biggest states in the country: California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico and Hawaii. It is interesting to note that seven of those states were won by Barack Obama on election night. In California, there are 139 “takers” for every 100 private sector workers. That is crazy! The American people have become absolutely addicted to government money, and it gets worse with each passing year. If you can believe it, entitlements accounted for 62 percent of all federal spending in fiscal year 2012. It would be one thing if we could afford all of this spending, but unfortunately we simply cannot. We are drowning in debt, and we are stealing more than a hundred million more dollars from future generations with each passing hour. No bank robber in history can match that kind of theft.
Yes, we will always need a safety net. There are many people out there that simply cannot take care of themselves. We certainly don’t want to see anyone sleeping in the streets or starving to death.
But if the number of people jumping on to the safety net continues to grow at the current pace, the net will break and it will not be available for any of us.
For example, the number of Americans on food stamps grew from about 17 million in 2000 to more than 47 million today. It nearly tripled in just 12 years.
What will happen if it nearly triples again over the next 12 years?
The federal government even has a website (benefits.gov) that guides people through the process of figuring out what welfare programs they can take advantage of.
Overall, the federal government runs nearly 80 different “means-tested welfare programs” and more than 100 million Americans are already enrolled in at least one of those programs.
Yes, I realize that figure is very hard to believe. I had a hard time believing it when I first came across it.
And it is even more shocking when you realize that the figure of 100 million Americans does not even include those who only receive Social Security or Medicare.
Today, there are 56.76 million Americans on Social Security.
To support all of those Americans on Social Security, there are only about 94.75 million full-time private sector workers.
So there are just 1.67 full-time private sector workers to support each American that is on Social Security.
Medicare is also growing like crazy. As I wrote about the other day, the number of Americans on Medicare is expected to grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.
How much farther can we push things before the entire system collapses?
In order to support this exploding entitlement system, we need a lot more Americans to be working good paying jobs.
Unfortunately, millions of good paying jobs continue to be shipped overseas and they aren’t coming back.
We are even losing good jobs to our own prisoners. The United States has the largest prison population in the world by far, and the exploitation of that low wage labor pool has become a boom industry in America. Even Microsoft and Boeing are using prison labor now.
Meanwhile, there are millions upon millions of law-abiding Americans that cannot find jobs and that cannot take care of their families.
So poverty and dependence on the government are absolutely exploding. We have a system that is so messed up that it is hard to even put it into words. The middle class is being viciously shredded, and most Americans just continue to applaud the politicians from both parties that are doing this to us.
Our economy is being gutted at the same time that the welfare state is experiencing unprecedented growth. Instead of giving us real answers, our “leaders” just continue to borrow, spend and print more money. We are about to hit the debt limit again, and the Obama administration is saying that we should just do away with the debt limit permanently.
Most of our politicians don’t seem to understand that they are systematically destroying our economy and the bright futures that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have.
But there are some politicians out there that get it. Unfortunately, many of them live in other countries. For example, Canadian MP Pierre Poilievre seems to have a firm grasp on what debt is doing to the United States. The following are some excerpts from one of his speeches…
“By 2020, the US Government will be spending more annually on debt interest than the total combined military budgets of China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain, Turkey, and Israel.”
“Through government spending the indulgence of one is the burden of another; through government borrowing, the excess of one generation becomes the yoke of the next; through international bailouts, one nation’s extravagance becomes another nation’s debt”
“Everyone takes, nobody makes, work doesn’t pay, indulgence doesn’t cost, money is free, and money is worthless.”
And if we continue down this path it is most definitely true that our money will eventually become worthless at some point. Just today I was down at the grocery store, and a can of chili that I was able to get on sale for 75 cents a couple of years ago now has a “sale price” of $1.69. If the Federal Reserve keeps recklessly printing dollars, eventually we will be fortunate to get a can of chili for 10 bucks. Things cost too much already, and the Fed seems absolutely determined to cut the legs out from under the U.S. dollar.
Unfortunately, printing money is the only way that we are going to be able to service the gigantic amounts of debt that we are accumulating.
According to Chris Cox and Bill Archer, two men who served on Bill Clinton’s Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, there is no way in the world that we could raise taxes high enough to pay for all of the obligations that we are currently taking on. They say that even if we taxed all corporations and all individuals at a 100% tax rate on all income over $66,193, “it wouldn’t be nearly enough to fund the over $8 trillion per year in the growth of U.S. liabilities.”
Are you starting to get an idea of how much trouble we are in?
We don’t have enough money to pay for all of this.
We are broke.
Our current economy is a debt-induced illusion, and we will soon be waking up to a tremendous amount of pain.
anotherjuan says:
the usa needs to remain competitive in the world market. obama needs to inflate the currency to keep its value low. whether it is obama’s strategy or china’s strategy to devalue national currency, we are engaged in a contest to print the same or more money than the other guy. helicopter ben proposed to shower the country with money. that is going on with government freebies of every kind. we the public are shaking our heads in consternation to see that some persons get money for free while we work for almost the same amount.
in a similar vein, i read of a growing trend towards multi -father single parent households. the sexual revolution of the late 60′s has brought us a depreciated sex, women have become not a precious commodity but a cheapened one. we shake our heads in consternation to see a man who has several women and multiple children while we work to support one wife and one or two kids.
the usa has been in steady decline since the end of the vietnam war, the usa went broke after the vietnam war. nixon sold the country to china and the country suffered with stagflation until reagan set the usa on an irreversible course of government spending. bush 1 tried to set the country back on sound fiscal footing but was soundly beaten about the ears for this. all presidents since have learned the lesson well, americans want free bread and circuses, not fiscal conservatism. the stock market was artificially inflated during the clinton years and allowed to deflate with the 9/11 incident.
we boomers know in our heart that we will not get social security, we hope to get something but war and its sacrifices will conveniently interrupt our plans for a few years until we all die off.
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27th December 2012 at 9:31 pm
TeresaE says:
1 taker to 1.67 “private” workers. Now realize that out of the 94.7 million “private” workers, there are MILLIONS that are actually contracted government workers, or being paid from some great government plan, or another. GM, Chrysler, A-123, GE, BoA, Capital One, Wells Fargo, Haliburton, Blue Cross and dozens of “health systems,” to name but a few.
My best guesstimate is that at least another 25% of those “private” jobs are truly government jobs. It may be as high as 50% when you truly take government funding into account. Thus, the takers are, at best, neck and neck, with the makers. At best.
We passed the point of no return, long, long ago.
Hard times are coming, harder than 95% of our fellow citizens can even imagine. It is no wonder Russia is stopping its children from coming here and it is no wonder that we will be dis-armed.
Interesting times and FUBAR’d beyond all recognition.
Wish I could figure out a legitimate way to get on the gravy train while the getting is still good. Damn pride and self-sufficiency, damn them all to hell.
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27th December 2012 at 8:24 am
Davos says:
62 percent goes to entitlements.
No.
All tax revenue goes to mandatory spending, and interest, nothing is left for wars and what we’d consider government after that.
Good theme, but it is written by some blogger who is economically challenged. Has the right idea, but can’t do the fucking math.
TOTAL SPENDING $3.603 trillion
2011 Federal Government’s spending: $3,603,000,000,000.00 (3.603 trillion)
There are a million “millions” in a trillion or 1,000 millions in a billion and 1,000 billions in a trillion. If you spent 1 million a day since 1AD you’d have not spent a trillion.
Federal spending is breaks out into 3 key areas: Mandatory programs, Interest & Discretionary Spending.
MANDATORY SPENDING $2.073 Trillion FY2011
Entitlements:
Social Security…………………………………………………………………………$726 billion
Medicare……………………………………………………………………………………$480 billion
Medicaid……………………………………………………………………………………$275 billion
TARP & Other mandatory programs…………………………………….$631 billion
Total………………………………………………………………………………………….$2,073 trillion
2011 Other Mandatory Spending includes: Food Stamps (47 million recipients) Unemployment Benefits (22.8% unemployment rate), Child Nutrition Student Loans, Disability and Tax Credits.
INTEREST ON FEDERAL DEBT $230 billion
Interest:…………………………………………………………………………………..$230 billion
DISCRETIONARY SPENDING $1.3 trillion
Must be approved by Congress each year, breaks out into 2 key areas: Security related Military Foreign Aid, Veteran Services and non-security related (What we think of when we think of the government, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Justice, State, Energy Treasury, Interior, Transportation, HHS, HUD, etc.)
Security:…………………………………………………………………………………..$700 billion
Nonsecurity……………………………………………………………………………..$462 billion
Total……………………………………………………………………………………….$1,300 trillion
GOVERNMENT INCOME TOTAL RECEIPTS $2.303 Trillion
Income (Government Revenues): $2,303,000,000,000.00 (2.303 trillion)
Mandatory Programs……………………………………………………………….$2.073 trillion
Interest……………………………………………………………………………………….$ 230 billion
Discretionary Spending…………………………………………………………..$1,300 trillion
Total……………………………………………………………………………………………$3.603 trillion
Government “Balance” Sheet
Income………………………………………………………………………………………..$2.303 trillion
Total Spending………………………………………………………………………….$3.603 trillion
DEFICIT………………………………………………………………………………………$1.300 trillion
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27th December 2012 at 8:34 am
ThePessimisticChemist says:
@TeresaE – “Now realize that out of the 94.7 million “private” workers, there are MILLIONS that are actually contracted government workers, or being paid from some great government plan, or another”
I’m not sure how I overlooked that. I need a stiff drink….
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27th December 2012 at 9:49 am
Pirate Jo says:
From this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578171444161023374.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
“The Tax Foundation notes that nearly 70% of Americans now take more out of the tax system than they pay into it.”
I’m one of the 30% that is pulling the wagon. I do everything I can to shelter my income from taxes, but taxes are still a bigger expense to me than anything else I spend money on. (I’m single and have no kids, so the only way I could be hosed worse is if I was married and had no kids.) I’ve never received a government check for anything in my life.
Thing is, I’m not into martyrdom. Some people might feel quite proud of being one of the “makers” in the 30%, but I feel like a huge chump. Being one of the shat-upon stooges who trudges along, pulling the wagon, while everyone else rides in it, feels to me like having a giant “kick me” sign taped to my butt. I don’t feel that I wound up in this position by making the right choices – instead it feels like I had the wrong idea all along.
We had Ron Paul, but all those people riding in the wagon want to keep the gravy train going. I have developed a downright misanthropic view toward the other humans I am stuck sharing this planet with. There is no where else to go, no way to escape and “go Galt.” The USA was the last place left.
I despise the wagon itself, and the fact that I am forced to subsidize 300-lb “disabled” people who don’t work, or people “diagnosed” with a bunch of silly “disorders” which really amount to them being a bunch of unemployable assholes who nobody wants to hire. If I can refrain from having kids I can’t afford, why can’t other people? If I can grasp the concept that retirement is something I have to save for myself, why can’t other people? The truth is, other people can do those things too, but they’ve never had to, because idiots like me keep pulling the wagon for them.
In 2013, my company is being split by line of business and sold to different buyers. There is a pretty good chance I’ll lose my job, due to the nature of my position here. If that happens, even though I don’t need the money, I’m going to get on unemployment, which believe it or not would actually provide enough income for me to live on without having to touch my own savings, because I paid off my home two years ago. Screwwit, if I get a chance to stop pulling the wagon, hop into it, and hasten its collapse, I will. Perversely, that’s how I think I might best make the world a better place.
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27th December 2012 at 10:53 am