JOY OVERBECK: When welfare beats work

Obama entitlements have made labor optional

With multimillionaire Democrats such as Hillary Clinton predictably accusing mean Republicans of ignoring the poor, and the upcoming election sure to hinge on “who cares more” about struggling Americans, it’s fair to ask who the poor actually are.

The number of Americans receiving assistance from about 79 means-tested federal poverty programs is up 32 percent since 2008, the yearBarack Obama was elected. Now more than 100 million — nearly one in three Americans — get benefits from at least one of these programs, not including Social Security and Medicare payments.
But how is this possible in the most prosperous nation on earth? It’s because of the crafty way the Census Bureau inflates the numbers of those who qualify as “poor” by omitting nearly all of the government welfare payments they already receive when calculating their income.

For example, if the income of a family of four is below $24,250, they qualify for government poverty programs because the additional $10,000 a year they may already receive through those programs is not counted as part of their income. A Heritage Foundation study that examined census records concluded, “This neat bureaucratic ploy ensured that welfare programs could grow infinitely while ‘poverty’ remained unchanged” — at about 14 percent for decades.

That’s why America’s “poor” live surprisingly well. Here are some details from the Census Bureau:

More