The Patriot Post® · Income Redistribution: Work to Welfare

Forget troublesome unemployment rates. With welfare like the Obama administration offers, who needs a job? According to a recent Cato Institute report, “The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work.” In 35 states, welfare pays more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and in 13 states welfare pays more than $15 per hour. It’s hardly a shock, then, that welfare’s ranks are growing.

Last month marked another new record for the number of households receiving food stamps – 23,116,928. And while in 2008, 28.2 million individuals received food stamps, in 2012 that number hit 46.6 million, with concomitant costs spiking from almost $35 billion in 2008 to approximately $80 billion four years later. Barack Obama has apparently taken this as a mandate not to encourage welfare-to-work but, what else, to offer food stamps to illegal immigrants. Just visit the Mexican Embassy and you might see the Spanish-language USDA flyer saying that legal immigration status isn’t a requisite for dining at Uncle Sam’s table. But don’t worry, you’ve got the bill.