Has the ‘War on Poverty’ Failed?
Latest reports are indicating that the years of political in-fighting have led to millions of Americans needing some type of help from poverty and entitlement programs, which have failed and are costing tax payers 45 percent of the federal budget, according to Heritage Foundation estimates. Insanity.
The current data is two years old but the unemployment and underemployment numbers are a good indication that the numbers could still be close. As of 2012, The Census Bureau reports that 35.4 percent of Americans needed some type of help from the government: 109,631,000 out of 309,467,000 Americans required “means-tested programs.” If the “non-means-tested programs” (Social Security, Veterans benefits, Medicare and unemployment) are added into the mix, 153,323,000 Americans needed help.
Who are these Americans?
There are many categories of welfare recipients broken down by The Census Bureau. The category with the most Americans (82,679,000) that received help were people obtaining Medicaid. Other categories were significantly lower in numbers included the following:
- Food stamps (51,471,000)
- Women, Infants and Children program (22,526,000)
- Supplemental Security Income (20,355,000)
- Public housing/housing subsidies (13,267,000)
- Temporary Assistance – Needy Families (5,442,000)
- Federal cash assistance (4,517,000)
I don’t consider Social Security to retirees an “entitlement.” It’s a funded program that should have been maintained but wasn’t.
Medicaid is the biggest expense for Americans, and I think it is the most misunderstood entitlement program.
What is Medicaid? Dictionary.com defines it as “a U.S. government program, financed by federal, state, and local funds, of hospitalization and medical insurance for persons of all ages within certain income limits.”
The Medicaid program is a huge and complicated system that needs reorganized before any real change can occur, but jobs can be a cure for many of Americans needing medical insurance and basic living needs.
Are creations of jobs a solution to entitlement programs for some Americans? Yes. It’s estimated by a variety of employment data that 3 to 5 million jobs go unfilled every year because of unqualified applicants, and estimates from Social Security reports indicate that an estimated 10,000 baby boomers retire every day (3/4 million estimated yearly). Although job creation is slow from The Great Recession, millions of jobs have being created.
Why some American’s are not working in the jobs being created?
There is a variety of reasons:
- Pay
- Ability to relocate
Educational requirements - No benefits
- Laziness
The No.1 problem is that quality jobs are not being created along with Americans receiving poor education.
The reality of the problem is that most Americans that vote don’t understand the issues or the individuals that they are voting for to put into some of the most powerful positions in the world.
The solutions have to be based on the root cause of each situation, not thrown into one big pot and mixed together, and they cannot continue to be decided on political party lines. After reading the newest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report (8/27/2014) about the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, I’ve come to the conclusion that the CBO and American politicians operate in a daily “unknown world” of reality. I think it’s a roll the dice and hope we all come out on the right side; math no longer exists.
The basic business concept that would be used is to start auditing every federal government agency that exists.
Get out and vote in November for candidates that understand the issues and have solutions or keep paying the entitlement bill!
