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Government Dependents Outnumber Those With Private Sector Jobs In 11 U.S. States
Government Dependents Outnumber Those With Private Sector Jobs In 11 U.S. States
Courtesy of Michael of Economic Collapse
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. Just check out this video.
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."
You can see his entire speech right here.
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.
Are you ready?
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i see binko gets it. welfare and unemployment pays better.
Not to worry, Binko, Our Fearless Leader is very busy "restructuring our broken economy" at this very moment.
Oh. And Fearless Leader #2, the Biden, is very busy restructuring the 2nd Amendment, too.
Lucky us, huh?
Now roll over and bark...
There are plenty of decent and high paying jobs for engineers, enough that we have to look to foreigners to fill them because we don't produce enough at home. There was an ad in the SF Bay Area for entry level salaries as a BART policeman from $135,000 to $165,000...go figure. So tell me what do we need to do to change our economic system...should we pay people a lot of money to be lifeguards? Or maybe we should pay people big money to produce shit nobody wants...to pay people you need to earn money, to earn money you need to provide a competitive product or service. In a very competitive world that takes sacrifice and hard work, even more so if the government keeps asking for more taxes. So in the end, the economic system rewards those who work hard and have rare knowledge or skills considered valuable. A college degree in a applicable field is much more valuable than an art or social science degree as well. Our economic system was working great while our people had values and a work ethic. The new world is full of sloth, lethargy, greed, selfishness and takers. There is no economic system that has been created that will succeed with tho types of people. A private sector company would fail with those types of employees...our government will fail if they continue to follow this path.
This is the same bullshit that people spewed in the thirties about hoboes and bums.
When the economy improved, all these same people became good hard-working middle class pillars of the community. Going on about how the system is perfect but the people need to be treated much more harshly, let them die in the streets if need be, sort of begs the question.
Question is, does the economic system reward those who work hard and have rare knowledge or skills?
No. Historically there are slaves to do the hard work and the rewards go to the owners.
If anything has become clear from the welfare for the banks and all the fraud that goes unprosecuted together with the increasing concentration of wealth and income, it is that the benefits of increasing productivity go largely to the owners of capital and resources.
By the way, I belong to the over-taxed hard-working degree-holding people. I am not unhappy nor do I feel disadvantaged by sharing my "production" with the rest of other people and with society at large. But I am not blind. Yes there are lazy people and others who make poor choices, but the economic system does not automatically return rewards to those who produce. It is very important to bring taxes and laws in line with incentives to produce, but producing and renteniering are not the same thing.
The advantage that "hoboes and bums" had over the "homeless" was that we could dress up like them on Halloween.
While you are tooting your horn about your degree and how you don't mind "spreading the wealth around"{because you are a socialist}, understand this: Your comparison of the situation today with the 1930s is foolish, to put it mildly. Of course people went back to work after things picked up, because there was no other choice! Welfare, or "relief" as it was called then, was only for families, and it was just enough to keep body and soul together, no section 8 housing or medicaid/medicare like today. And sure as hell no cash payments. All of that didn't come until the 1960s, thanks to that bastard LBJ {or FDR jr as I call him}. So, unlike today when a person has a choice to remain on the taxpayer tit or work, it was a no-brainer about what to do back then. There is nothing worse than someone spouting off about something they know nothing about.
It's because
THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!
From the 'South Park' cartoon show, hilarious, a full minute of American accents repeating
« ... They turk arrr jaarbbs! ... They tirrk arrr jarrrbbss!! ... »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768h3Tz4Qik
"Everyone takes, nobody makes, work doesn't pay, indulgence doesn't cost, money is free, and money is worthless."
~ Canadian MP Pierre Poilievre
FORWARD SOVIET!
Obama's plan, the Progressive's tin god, continues to coalesce.
In politics, few talents are as richly rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims. ... generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensation for injustices – leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.
~ Thomas Sowell
FORWARD SOVIET!
They didn't "take your jobs".
You priced yourselves out of the market. Your cometition works cheaper and better than you, Americans...
Kreditanstalt
Odd thinking you have. Even Henry Ford knew his workers needed to be paid enough to buy his cars.
Its vastly more complicated than that. But if it has to be shortened, you did as well as possible. Sadly for many if us.
This article is laughable.
Another well researched and written piece that never mentions the MOST expensive and negative program, Welfare.
It costs MORE than Medicare, Soc. Sec. Or Defense. With this program we promote EXPONETIAL growth of "non-workers".....generation after generation of them.
This type of thing is similar to trash like "the Daily Show" and "Colbert Report"(with their studio audiences of cackling jackals) in that it makes light of things that need to be seriously addressed and ridicules them. To trivialize matters that are of the utmost importance really goes to the heart of why the media is complicit in the ruination of US society. In 500 years will people like Tolstoy and Mozart still be held up as an example of the beauty that man can produce-or garbage from the US shit-mill in Hollywood like South Park and Django Unchained?
Last week, HonestAnn had a reply on ZH about Producers, Predators & Parasites (http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-12-22/lie-prosecuting-bank-fra... - Sun, 12/23/2012 - 23:16 | 3092286) - a super red pill that explains the 'who and what', and why we can't escape these termites eating the framing holding the house together.
The Predators buy the votes from the Parasites with handouts and free X (fill in the blank: phones, cheese, mild subsidies, etc) and they pay for it with the Producers production.
But eventually, you run out of other peoples money and this article proves you should have already moved Peru, AussieLand, or x-destination.
When the house falls from the slightest blow of wind, the Predators will blame it all on the termites (parasites) and I hope the Producers will not be so stupid as to buy their lies.
Even if you've taken the red pill, the post by HonestAnn is a further journey down the rabbit hole in understanding.
@ The Navigator
honestann is truly one of the best contributors to Zero Hedge.
DoChen is FORCED to give a green up arrow to ANYONE mentioning Peru positively.
EDIT:
You deserve more than one up green arrow for pointing the way. Everyone reading The Nav's post or mine should read honestann's post mentioned above.
+ 1 quadrillion
Thanks DoChenRB
Happy New Year to you and yours - Happy New Year Tyler and all ZHer's.
I read the post by honestann. And while it certainly had some provocative ideas, it suffered from the same problem that a lot of posts at ZH have: they are irrationally and pathologically pessimistic in their outlook. I mean I'm a garden variety of pessimist. To me the glass of water is usually half-empty. But that post was saying in effect that the glass of water has no water in it at all, but is bone-dry, radioactive, and crawling with ebola infected leeches.
Sorry dedicated members of the ZH Pessimism Cult. The world just isn't that cut and dry between good and evil. And people aren't so easily classified as predator/producer/parasite. Each of us dabbles in all three of those overly-simplistic classifications along with many more. One classification that was notably missing was the non-participant, or the "omega man" who chooses none of the above. And those seem to be growing of late. To wit the expression: going galt.
Believing in things like pessimism = you're an idiot
Oh today im happy, today im sad.. shut the fuck up.
I am optimistic most ZHr's will survive. It is the Parasites and Predators who will have to eat optimism. It tastes good and has zero calories.
And most importantly, we human beings create our reality. What we think, say, do, envision shows up in the plane of our existence. We are Universal power incarnate. Cleanup your thoughts, hold your tongue, write what is is you want to see. See the world the way you want it to be. Replace the overlords in our minds with love for ourselves, love and compassion for all, and acknowledgement for our incredible beings. Meditate. Connect with our own true selves. Live this day in this moment. Let this forum be a celebration of this truth and an example of the manifestations of our own goodly power. Resist not evil means - give your energy to what you want to see manifest. Non-resistance means - don't spend time fighting their illusions, spend your energy creating your own reality. Love and Light to all in this new age.
I greened you, but why bother with either pessimism or optimism? People understand things beyond the words they say. But in the end there are things that are true and things which are not true, and those have implications.
Your use of words like 'pessimism' and 'optimism' are a bit funny really, as they're your internal personal response to perceptions and classifications of what someone strung together in text. But the person who wrote it may feel entirely differently about it all.
So that response, that 'pessimism', or that 'optimism', that's you that you're feeling - you're not feeling them. :-O
Know thy self
I am usually pessimistic about things at 4:00 in the mornings, when I awake and experience the 4 o'clock frights. After I've had my morning coffee, i feel better and more opimistic.
So what changed? Nada.
I'd RATHER be happy, but facts is facts, and sometimes they can gang up on one's psyche.
Keep drinking the coffee ;) You sound like a worried man. Never had morning 'frights' (panic attack?), unless it was an alarm clock. Mine used to be set for 3:15AM with my last job. I have experienced morning regrets though, but that was entirely avoidable. ;)
ZH has an agenda. Blogs by definition do.
It's still acceptable to hound the farmer on the hill that doesn't go to Church on Sundays with the rest of the town.
When I was small I watched men throw stones and break the windows in the house on the corner because the owner had no Christmas tree with lights in his front window. The following week we found out that he was from Norway and his village never had in-door decorated trees.
When I encounter collective hate I think of him.
Not one of you stupid fuckers thought of ringing a doorbell first?!
"he was from Norway and his village never had in-door decorated trees. When I encounter collective hate I think of him."
sounds like they were trying to force him to conform to their own culture
"we express our regret on behalf of the state for the injustice committed against the Sámi people through its harsh policy of Norwegianization" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegianization