Maybe you (or someone else) can explain to me what this guy is saying. It makes zero sense to me. And if you go to the link that he says has the chart below, it goes to an AEI post that has nothing to do with this. I think this allegation is crazy. I have worked with people on welfare before, and know that they do not in any sense of the word live middle class lives (well, maybe if you were to compare them to living in a cave--although that might depend on where the cave was and if there was good soil or game around). The ones I knew were pretty much poor, anxious and depressed, even though at times they put on a good show of bravado. But maybe PA welfare people are different from the ones I knew, lol.
Julia’s mother: Why a single mom is better off on welfare than taking a $69,000 job
by James Pethokoukis
The U.S. welfare system sure creates some crazy disincentives to working your way up the ladder. Benefits stacked upon benefits can mean it is financially better, at least in the short term, to stay at a lower-paying jobs rather than taking a higher paying job and losing those benefits. This is called the “welfare cliff.”
Let’s take the example of a single mom with two kids, 1 and 4. She has a $29,000 a year job, putting the kids in daycare during the day while she works.
As the above chart – via Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s secretary of Public Welfare — shows, the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income & benefits of $57,045.
It would sure be tempting for that mom to keep the status quo rather than take the new job, even though the new position might lead to further career advancement and a higher standard of living. I guess this is something the Obama White House forgot to mention in its “Life of Julia” cartoons extolling government assistance. |
