It’s (No Longer) Hip to be Square
February 19th, 2012 - 8:07 am
Via Tyler Durden… well, I’ll just let the chart speak for itself.
The safety net is becoming a barcalounger. Who’s got the remote?
Via Tyler Durden… well, I’ll just let the chart speak for itself.
The safety net is becoming a barcalounger. Who’s got the remote?
The truly scary fact is that doubling your income to $30,000 causes your total benefit to drop by almost 30%. Physicists would call that a potential well. Things tend to stay in potential wells.
First Mark Steyn ruined my Saturday. Now you are driving me to go throw eggs at some Occupy Something Camp. I am staring to get mad…
This is insanity!
I posted it. Stephen, you are also prompting me to pour some addition to my orange juice this morning. Before I do something rash!
My wife is 20+ year first grade teacher in public schools.
One of my pet peeves is the fact that families getting free lunch, breakfast (and sometimes a sack meal sent home for dinner, and in certain areas the school cafeterias operating in *summer* just for this purpose)… never have any sort of corresponding deduction made from their food stamps, which covers all meals.
This helps me to understand M. Romney’s comment that he was not concerned for the Very Poor, but for the middle.
no Medicade unless you are black, hispanic, single mom, etc.
Crikey. Words fail me. (*rummaging around in the drawer for my razor blades*)
Yeah, but in those first columns, the “as well” is made up of restricted and potentially useless benefits.
If I’m healthy, the medicaid has zero real value.
If I have no kids, none of the school lunch stuff (or CHIP) is of any value either.
And while Section 8 rent subsidies are a benefit, the cost is living with other Section 8 recipients, which is by all accounts a cost.
So it’s not quite fair.
A couple points. Private health insurance also has “zero real value” if you’re healthy — but it’s money out of your paycheck, regardless. A working man or woman with no kids is still paying for things like school lunches and CHIP, out of their taxes, regardless of whether they have kids or anything else.
Also, for the kind of person willing to game the system this way, Section 8 is likely a step up.
Downright depressing chart – sigh.
My first job out of grad school paid $35K, and I had student loans to pay, and I didn’t get any of those government bennies. Boy do I feel stupid.
Time to have illegitimate kids and start smoking crack!
This shows what happens when recipients of government handouts are allowed to vote, and spineless politicians allow it.
Atlas will shrug, sooner or later — because socialism always runs out of other people’s money eventually.
Enjoy the decline.
How much better/worse has this situation gotten since Durden’s article was published (11/22/2010)?