Obama famously quipped (a gaffe: a moment of real truth telling by a politician) that it was better when the wealth is spread around. He wasn’t kidding.
Folks, this chart from ZeroHedge is absolutely stunning – the State (er, government) has now broken both the stigma and the moral hazard to "why NOT not work?". At this point, why shouldn’t I just throw myself onto the kindly arms of the bureaucrats and make myself totally dependent upon the taxpayers (those schmucks that are still working, that is). Just THINK of the blog posts I could churn out if I didn’t have to worry about a roof over my head and food on my table?
Sure, it would come with strings attached and hoops to jump through. But hey, I’m reasonably intelligent – it shouldn’t take THAT long to fill out the forms. I also remember the folks that had my State paying their bills for their kids at my Daycare center years ago. Certainly, one the topics was always "where to get the free stuff" as the boyfriends were literally at home in the garage drinking beers. Dependent on Government? Yes they can! Were they trying to work their way off it? In many cases, I can tell you "no they weren’t"!
Why? As you can see below, Government programs "trapped them" by setting incentives in such a way that it was in their best interest NOT to find work.
From the post:
In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year
My chart tells the story. It is pretty much self-explanatory.
As you read this, keep this in mind:
…poverty used to be calculated on a formula based on the cost of things; part of Obama’s legislation has now turned that into a simple percentage of what the rich earns. Thus, if the highest quintile income of the American population goes up, we may well see the number of people "under the poverty line" go way up – simply due to a re-definition.
Conclusion? The author says it well (emphasis mine):
The welfare system in communist China is far stringier. Those people have to work to eat.
We have been writing for over a year, how the very top of America’s social order steals from the middle class each and every day. Now we finally know that the very bottom of the entitlement food chain also makes out like a bandit compared to that idiot American who actually works and pays their taxes. One can only also hope that in addition to seeing their disposable income be eaten away by a kleptocratic entitlement state, that the disappearing middle class is also selling off its weaponry. Because if it isn’t, and if it finally decides it has had enough, the outcome will not be surprising at all: it will be the same old that has occurred in virtually every revolution in the history of the world to date.
