By Steve Levy
Every once in a while, you come across a statistic that encapsulates everything you have to know as to how dramatically America is changing. One such stat from a report issued by the Economic Innovation Group illustrates how dependent Americans are becoming on government. https://eig.org/great-transfermation/
In 1970, only 1% of all the counties in American received a significant portion of income (25% or more) in the county from some type of transfer funding from the government.
By 2012, that figure had jumped enormously to 20%. And that number skyrocketed even further after Covid to a remarkable 53%. Covid has been behind us now for quite a while, but the dependency has become the new normal in our country.
Transfers from government accounted for 8% of an individual’s income in 1970. That figure is up to 18% today.
This is frightening because it means the diminishing pool of workers are now working and paying more taxes to help subsidize those who are relying on government handouts.
According to a 2018 analysis by the Joint Economic Committee, 64% of nonworking prime-age men received some form of government assistance, while 4 in 10 received disability assistance and 38% received food stamps. Fourteen percent of prime-age men did not work in 2019.
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/america-needs-prime-age-men-to-be-working/
A remarkable seven million men of working age are no longer looking for work and have just accepted that they will remain terminally unemployed.
When the government hands out to some people benefits that give them more than they get to work, is it any wonder why this number would continue to increase? https://www.johnlocke.org/when-welfare-pays-more-than-work-many-choose-welfare/
And don’t be fooled by the government numbers on unemployment. We see that each month after the pandemic ended, new jobs have been created. But amazingly three-fourths of those jobs have been given to individuals who are not American citizens. https://cis.org/Camarota/Most-Employment-Growth-Pandemic-Has-Gone-Immigrants
And a huge chunk of the total new jobs – up to 25% – is for positions in the public sector, which are an additional drain to the taxpayer. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-administration-job-growth-numbers-175321823.html
America became the most vibrant and upwardly mobile nation the world ever knew. That was in large part because we were so industrious. A vibrant private sector with competition primed the pump. If our market economy is allowed to flourish, the economic pie will continue to get bigger collectively, while, over time, we will each get a slightly bigger slice.
But it appears that we are starting to mirror the socialist welfare states of Europe. That might feel like a good thing short-term for those who are coasting on the government benefits, but, over time, it is suffocating for a nation that wants to grow and enhance its quality of life.
There are a lot of stats that can give you a flavor of the direction America is heading, but these damning numbers regarding government dependency should be a wake-up call for us all.
We are slowly drifting towards socialism. There’s time to reverse the trend, but once you go too far, it becomes almost impossible to turn the train around. Too many people will be dependent on the government and never want their goodies taken away. Then we will indeed be Greece.
Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com