Welfare spending is higher than ever but the money is going to people
living above the poverty line—and this redistribution is actually
hurting America’s economic recovery, according to a new book.
Casey Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and the author of The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy, argues “at least half, and probably more, of the drop in aggregate hours since 2007 would not have occurred, or at worse would have been short-lived, if the safety net had been constant.”
President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill largely contributed to the growth in welfare spending over the past years. A recent National Affairs article, “Restoring a True Safety Net,” argues that “the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), or the stimulus program, specifically targeted poverty programs for greatly expanded funding.”
Total welfare spending topped $1 trillion in fiscal year 2011 according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), making welfare spending the largest part of our federal budget—a fact illustrated in a chart released by Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.).
Benefits increased in response to the recession that began in December and ended in mid-2009.
“We’re not just having poor people getting benefits,” David Armor, a professor at George Mason University and co-author of the National Affairs article, told the Washington Free Beacon. “The programs are more generous now.”
Armor’s study shows that “more than half of the benefits allocated through programs we think of as ‘anti-poverty’ efforts actually go to people above the poverty line as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.”
Mulligan’s book documents and analyzes “the surprisingly large changes in means-tested resource allocation since 2007.” His analysis shows that “the safety net expanded, and then stabilized at a more generous level, at about the same times that employment rates dropped, and then stabilized at a lower level.”
Read more: http://freebeacon.com/the-poor-tax/
Casey Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and the author of The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy, argues “at least half, and probably more, of the drop in aggregate hours since 2007 would not have occurred, or at worse would have been short-lived, if the safety net had been constant.”
President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill largely contributed to the growth in welfare spending over the past years. A recent National Affairs article, “Restoring a True Safety Net,” argues that “the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), or the stimulus program, specifically targeted poverty programs for greatly expanded funding.”
Total welfare spending topped $1 trillion in fiscal year 2011 according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), making welfare spending the largest part of our federal budget—a fact illustrated in a chart released by Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.).
Benefits increased in response to the recession that began in December and ended in mid-2009.
“We’re not just having poor people getting benefits,” David Armor, a professor at George Mason University and co-author of the National Affairs article, told the Washington Free Beacon. “The programs are more generous now.”
Armor’s study shows that “more than half of the benefits allocated through programs we think of as ‘anti-poverty’ efforts actually go to people above the poverty line as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.”
Mulligan’s book documents and analyzes “the surprisingly large changes in means-tested resource allocation since 2007.” His analysis shows that “the safety net expanded, and then stabilized at a more generous level, at about the same times that employment rates dropped, and then stabilized at a lower level.”
Read more: http://freebeacon.com/the-poor-tax/
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