Michael Tanner, one of my favorite experts on poverty in America, has co-authored an updated analysis of welfare receipts in the US. The paper is published by the Cato Institute.
The moral of the story is that welfare benefits are so generous, it is in the selfish, short-term interest of recipients to remain unemployed. Average benefits from different programs are compared across states. North Carolina ranks fairly toward the middle in most categories. Even so, North Carolinians receiving all available benefits collect around $28,000 annually. That would be 81.7% of median income, and almost three times the earned income of just about everybody I know in these-here parts.
Meanwhile, in Sub-Saharan Africa . . .
