Welfare benefits under the Biden administartion are failing to get people back into the workforce.AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Most Americans believe, as we do, in a reliable government safety net in America, so that when people fall on tough times or lose their jobs, their families will not go hungry, lose their homes or suffer deprivation. But most Americans also believe that government assistance should be short-term and aimed at quickly getting people back on their feet, into a job and on the road to being financially self-sufficient and a contributor to our economy.
Did you know that families earning half a million dollars a year can receive ObamaCare subsidies? Or that in some states, unemployment insurance benefits can be equivalent to a job with annual pay of $100,000?
It’s shocking but true, and it might explain why so many businesses can’t get workers back on the jobalmost three years after COVID-19 hit these shores. Today there are still at least 3 million fewer Americans working than there were in 2019.
Middle class last
There are many reasons for the worker shortage, but one is that in many states, welfare pays more than or nearly as much as respectable middle-class jobs.
Under Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, many of the highly effective work requirements, which were instituted in the historic 1996 bipartisan welfare reforms, have been eviscerated. Often limits for public benefits have also disappeared while Congress and states have made benefits more generous.
In some states families can earn over six figures annually in unemployment benefits.
Many programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (a k a food stamps), are means tested, so that only low-income people qualify for them. But other handouts are not — including unemployment insurance and ObamaCare subsidies.
The value of these benefits can be staggering — much higher, in fact, than many blue-collar professions. In our new study with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, we found the following:
In 24 states, unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for a family of four with no one working are the annualized equivalent of at least the national median household.
A family making almost a quarter of a million dollars annually still qualifies for ObamaCare subsidies in every state.
In a dozen states, the value of unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies exceeds the salary and benefits of the average teacher, construction worker, electrician, firefighter, truck driver, machinist or retail associate.
In New Jersey, a family of four can receive benefits equal to an annualized earned income of $108,000 with no one working.
In Connecticut and New Jersey, a family earning $300,000 a year can receive ObamaCare subsidies
New Jersey is a state where a family can earn the equivalent of $100,000 a year if both parents are collecting unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for health care. In Connecticut the benefits can reach $80,000.
To be clear, unemployment insurance is at least time-limited to six months in most states. But while Americans are receiving those benefits, the financial incentive to jump into the job market is low.
In addition, people move in and out of the unemployment system — working enough months until they again qualify for benefits.
Our numbers also don’t include the rampant fraud
Under Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, many of the highly effective work requirements, which were instituted in the historic 1996 bipartisan welfare reforms, have been eviscerated. Often limits for public benefits have also disappeared while Congress and states have made benefits more generous.
In some states families can earn over six figures annually in unemployment benefits.
Many programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (a k a food stamps), are means tested, so that only low-income people qualify for them. But other handouts are not — including unemployment insurance and ObamaCare subsidies.
The value of these benefits can be staggering — much higher, in fact, than many blue-collar professions. In our new study with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, we found the following:
In 24 states, unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for a family of four with no one working are the annualized equivalent of at least the national median household.
A family making almost a quarter of a million dollars annually still qualifies for ObamaCare subsidies in every state.
In a dozen states, the value of unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies exceeds the salary and benefits of the average teacher, construction worker, electrician, firefighter, truck driver, machinist or retail associate.
In New Jersey, a family of four can receive benefits equal to an annualized earned income of $108,000 with no one working.
In Connecticut and New Jersey, a family earning $300,000 a year can receive ObamaCare subsidies
New Jersey is a state where a family can earn the equivalent of $100,000 a year if both parents are collecting unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for health care. In Connecticut the benefits can reach $80,000.
To be clear, unemployment insurance is at least time-limited to six months in most states. But while Americans are receiving those benefits, the financial incentive to jump into the job market is low.
In addition, people move in and out of the unemployment system — working enough months until they again qualify for benefits.
Our numbers also don’t include the rampant fraud payments that exceed $100 billion a year.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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