81% of people receiving public housing benefits vote Democratic –

◼ And that’s just the tip of the handout iceberg - Matt Palumbo/Rare

Perhaps I spend too much time lurking around left-leaning blogs, but there are many myths taken as fact without any additional analysis.

One of the most prominent? The notion that red states take the most aid from the government.

...liberal economist Paul Krugman blogged that “Aaron Carroll of Indiana University tells us that in 2010, residents of the 10 states Gallup ranks as ‘most conservative’ received 21.2 percent of their income in government transfers, while the number for the most liberal states was only 17.1 percent.”

...But as solid as the statistics Krugman provided might seem, we’re left with one glaring problem: States aren’t people. Could it be possible that liberals within conservative states are the ones taking the welfare dollars?

A ◼ survey by the ◼ Maxwell Poll on the political affiliation of those receiving government aid showed this to be the case.

Type of Benefit Received - % Voting Dem - - - % Voting Rep
Public Housing.......................81%.......................12%
Medicaid................................74%.......................16%
Food Stamps..........................67%.......................20%
Unemployment Compensation..66%.......................21%
Disability (from Govt.)..............64%.......................25%
Welfare/Public Assistance........63%.......................22%

Attributing the problem to red states is false; the problem lies in the blue parts of the red states.

◼ Next time the media says “red states” are the poorest, remember this - Matt Palumbo/Rare

Paul Krugman and the left would like us to believe that red states are the poorest states.

PolitiFact rated such a claim as “true” noting, “The Census data also show that 9 of the 10 states with the lowest median household income were Red: Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma.” Whether or not a state is red or blue is based off how they voted in the 2012 election.

In another case of how sloppy PolitiFact’s “fact checking” can be, they didn’t even take cost of living differences into account when determining which states were the poorest.

Or that half of those “red” states have Democratic Governors....MORE, AT THE LINK.

◼ Krugman reports no individual level data, so let me. - Tino Sanandaji/A Research Fellow at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics/Super Economy

The Maxwell Poll has detailed information about welfare use....Hardly surprising, we see that in a two-party split, 60-80% of welfare recipients are Democrats, while full time Workers are evenly divided between parties.

◼ (S)imilar results in this recent NPR-Poll.Among the Long Term Unemployed, 72% of the two-party support goes to Democrats.

Federal Government Has Declared War On Work

◼ While 50 years ago the federal government declared war on poverty, I would submit that in recent years it has led an undeclared but real new war: a War on Work. The government increasingly is using its coercive powers to punish people who want to work, creating a vast class of able-bodied Americans dependent on the government — and politicians — for their daily bread. - Richard Vedder/IBD

While a vast number of government policies cause a decline in work, let me mention just six:

• Extended unemployment benefits.
• Expansion of food stamps.
• Higher taxes on workers, especially the most productive ones.
• Increases in Social Security disability payments.
• Increases in Pell Grants and other forms of federal higher education aid.
• Increases in minimum wage laws at local, state and federal levels.

...No nation ever achieved greatness when vast portions of its productive workforce were idle. America will not regain its economic vitality until it ends this war on work.

RECORD 10,978,040 NOW ON DISABILITY

◼ Record 10,978,040 Now on Disability; ‘Disability’ Would Be 8th Most Populous State - CNS

The 10,978,040 disability beneficiaries in the United States now exceed the population of all but seven states. For example, there are more Americans collecting disability today than there are people living in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey or Virginia....

In December 1968, 1,295,428 American workers collected disability and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65,630,000 worked full-time. Thus, there were about 51 full-time workers for each worker collecting disability. In May 2013, with a record 8,877,921 American workers collecting disability and 116,053,000 working full-time, there were only 13 Americans working full-time for each worker on disability.

◼ 72,600,000: Record Number on Medicaid in 2012; Outnumbers Populations of France and UK - CNS

Obama Economy: Men Find Careers in Collecting Disability

◼ Things have changed. Americans have grown healthier, and significantly lower numbers die before 65 than was the case a half-century ago. Nevertheless, the disability rolls have ballooned. - Michael Barone/Real Clear Politics

In 2011, 15 percent of disability recipients were in their 30s or early 40s. Concludes Eberstadt, "Collecting disability is an increasingly important profession in America these says."

Disability insurance is no longer a small program. The government transfers some $130 billion obtained from taxpayers or borrowed from purchasers of Treasury bonds to disability beneficiaries every year.

But there is also a human cost. Consider the plight of someone who at some level knows he can work but decides to collect disability payments instead.

That person is not likely to ever seek work again, especially if the sluggish recovery turns out to be the new normal.

He may be gleeful that he was able to game the system or just grimly determined to get what he can in a tough situation. But he will not be able to get the satisfaction of earned success from honest work that contributes something to society and the economy.

I use the masculine pronoun intentionally, because an increasing number of American men have dropped out of the workforce altogether. In 1948, 89 percent of men age 20 and over were in the workforce.

In 2011, 73 percent were. Only a small amount of that change results from an aging population. Jobs have become physically less grueling and economically more rewarding than they were in 1948.

The Americans With Disabilities Act helped many people move forward and contribute to society. The explosive growth of disability insurance has had an opposite effect.