Over $60,000 in Welfare Spent Per Household in Poverty

I got 4k.  maybe my math is wrong.  I can double check it when I get to work

103 billion / 16,807,795

 Well unless you mean 471 billion defined as welfare.  most of that was unemployment.  There are many I am sure that do not count as poverty at least for now.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_fy11bs12012n_4047#usgs302

The article talks about all federal and state spending.  That was around $ 1 trillion.

Including state contributions to the roughly 80 federal poverty programs, the total amount spent in 2011 was approximately $1 trillion.

1 trillion / 16,807,000 = $59,000 (rounded)

Actually by census data 15% of the population lived below the poverty line (~$23,000/yr) in 2011.  That is on the realm of 4.6*10^7 people.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2011/highlights.html

Agree

Ah never mind, my bad, you are talking households not people.

Exactly.  I *think* they are talking about money spent on these households.  I do not think they mean the households GET that money.

So where is the rest going?

x 2 - If we are putting $60k into those homes, then they are nowhere near a poverty level. So a lot of that money must be getting spent on overhead costs of administration and staff. 

It might be a reasonable debate as to how that money is being spent - much like in the midst of the mortgage crisis, there were people saying rather than giving the money to the banks (and hoping the banks would help people refinance, or forgive a portion of debt) that we should simply pay off mortgages and let people start fresh. In other words, HOW the money is being spent, more so than HOW MUCH money. Spending the money wisely may allow less to be spent. Spending less, if done foolishly, is worse than not spending it at all, in the long wrong.

Here is the full list of programs.

http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=34919307-6286-47ab-b114-2fd5bcedfeb5

I do believe not all of the money in those programs goes only to people at or below the poverty line.

IOW not all welfare spending is spent on people in poverty a lot, though I do not know the exact amount, is spent on people above the poverty line e.g. the lower to middle middle class.

Here's a breakdown of the actual spending.  By far the biggest program is medicaid.  

http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=0f87b42d-f182-4b3d-8ae2-fa8ac8a8edad

This is the total spending on each program, including overhead and admin expenses, not how much aid each recipient is actually receiving.  By aggregating the total per person it's also making the assumption that every person in poverty is receiving aid from every one of these programs, which I'm sure isn't the case.  But it makes it easier to generate outrage if you play it up to look like every poor person is getting $60,000 in cold hard cash every year.

No one said that Drew.  If you add up the total spending and divide it by the # of households who receive (even parts of it) you arrive at that $60k number.

So if you disagree, either the # of households is wrong or the total spent is wrong.  There are only 2 variables.

What is unknown is if people ABOVE the poverty line are getting $ from these programs then it increases the # of households which lowers the $ per household spent.  This could be the case...

They are!  Here are the income eligabilities for SCHIP (health insurance for kids) for all the states.  Remember poverty line for a family of 4 is ~$23k

http://espanol.coverageforall.org/pdf/SCHIPMap.pdf

That is just one program.

Well then the $60k figure is wrong. 

Yes it is and it is a huge part of the problem.  Why does a family of 4 making $88 or even $55K a year need federal or state assistance? That is solidly middle class in a country with a median income of around $52K.  Add to that the 47% not paying income taxes when only 15% are at or below poverty line.  That leaves 32% in the middle class not paying income taxes.  Yes these are all rough ideas and do not take into account all possible permutations but is that really reasonable or have we come to expect too much to be given to us and too little to be asked of us?

I definitely think it's worthwhile to break it out to see where the money is going and see if the programs are worthwhile and performing well, but at the same time, you also have to look at who asked for the study.  A group of republican senators doesn't ask for a study because they want to hear that there isn't enough assistance to the needy, and IMO, using a meaningless stat like the $60,000 is intended more to generate outrage (class warfare goes both ways) than to take an honest look at the spending and assess whether these programs are useful or not. 

Unfortunately Brad, I believe most WF recipients will take the other road and collect all they can.  Gald you pulled out of the difficult time.

Well, part of that is pointed out by the article itself:

"After all, many above the poverty line also receive benefits from social welfare programs (e.g. pell grants)."

So some of that waste is the fact that we're giving benefits to people who don't really need them.

Interesting study on that:

http://www.urban.org/publications/900288.html

To be fair I do not know much about the Urban Institute.  They say they are non partisan but then again so does everyone else.