THE $168 PER DAY WELFARE LIE ... AND OUR GROWING ZONE OF CYBER IGNORANCE

My God, there's a vein of stupidity that runs through our nation that never seems to end. 

If you Google "$168 per day" you will end up with page after page of links to numerous sites explaining how people receiving public assistance in America get $168 per day in free stuff. Seriously, Google "$168 per day" and watch the zone of cyber ignorance materialize before your eyes. 

While I've seen the claim that welfare recipients are getting up to $168 per day in different forums here's how I recently saw it from a Facebook friend  ... 

 America's Death Spiral. Interesting ... These 11 States now have More People on  Welfare than they do Employed. Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2011, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid and other benefits, the average U.S. household below the poverty line received $168.00 a day in government support. What’s the problem with that much support? Well, the median household income in America is just over $50,000, which averages out to $137.13 a day. To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the  equivalent of $30.00 an hour for a 40-hour week, while the average job pays $25.00 an hour.

In this electronic chain letter the claim went beyond the $168 per day nonsense to argue that there are now 11 states with more people living on welfare than they have employed. There are plenty of people who believe this stuff.  But wait, it gets worse.

A progressive friend of mine recently posted this on his Facebook site ... 

This is what Troy, who apparently lives in cyber ignorance, had to say about the post ...

The govt spent 1.02 trillion on welfare not counting SS, medicaid and medicare in FY '12. Take 1 trillion divided by 310 million. It comes out to $3225 per American. What is it, 1 in 7 below the "poverty line"? So 3225 X 7? So $22575 dollars per poor person? Wow. If these programs worked so well, we wouldn't have any poor people. Tax cuts are NOT taking anything from the poor.

So, yeah, the $168 a day lie has grown into a trillion dollar monster for people like Troy (I'll explain the trillion dollar monster below). Not that the true believers like Troy will want to read beyond this point, but let's take a look at why the $168 per day in benefits lie has come to life.

TELL ME SWEET LITTLE LIES ... 
Let's get one thing straight. Implying that people on public assistance receive $168 per day in benefits is an outright lie. But it is understandable because many people want to believe the lie. They set themselves up to believe it.

Remember the "skewed polls" nonsense that Fox News sold their audience right before the 2012 election?  Conservatives wanted so badly to believe that Mitt Romney was going to win the presidential election. So they bought into the Fox News storyline that national polls were so skewed in President Obamas favor that no one should believe them.

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According to Fox News and other conservative sources, Mitt Romney was either running neck and neck with President Obama, or pulling ahead. Conservative blogger Dean Chambers even created a "skewedpolls.com" website (currently off-line) that claimed Mitt Romney was ahead by 8-11 points a month before the election. Conservatives jumped on board (including many of my friends) and argued that Mitt Romney would be our next president.

Oops. 

WHAT'S IN A WORD (ALICE)?
Many conservatives are once again demonstrating that it's easier to believe what you want than it is to deal with reality. The $168 per day in public assistance lie is just one example. 

How can anyone make this claim? Easy. You call virtually every form of government support welfare, even if it isn't. 

It doesn't matter, for example, if government aid is offered to communities recovering from a natural disaster. It's welfare ... Job training programs? Welfare ... Education grants? Welfare ... Education for homeless children? Welfare ... Tax credits? Welfare ... Pell grants? Welfare ... Money to enforce child support orders? Welfare ... Money for the disabled? Welfare ... Aid to help rural communities upgrade their water system? Welfare. 

And the list goes on.

The categorization of welfare gets so ludicrous that one Forbes writer claimed that all government employees are "state dependent" and a drain on the system since their salaries are funded by tax dollars.

One is left to wonder how our Forbes writer would categorize our post-2008 bailed out financial sector. They are the beneficiaries of at least $17 trillion (and counting) in state assistance after the federal government put them on financial life support.

Expanding the categories of welfare programs explains how the almost $60 billion we spend on traditional welfare programs - like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF: $17.6 billion) and housing (HUD: $41.7 billion) - ballooned to over $700 billion, and then climbed past $1 trillion. If you turn every category of state funding into welfare it's not difficult to claim (as Troy claims) that we spend over a trillion dollars on welfare, or that welfare recipients receive $168 per day in assistance.

For these people it doesn't matter that every federal program cuts recipients off if they qualify for and receive aid in another area. This is why it shouldn't come as a surprise that the same people who bought into the "skewed poll" nonsense have also bought into the $168 per day stupidity. It's what they want to believe, so it must be true.

If dissecting the ignorance surrounding this kind of nonsense hurts your head you're not alone. Believe me, you're not alone. 

HOW THE LIE GOT STARTED
According to Alternet.org the $168 lie got started when the Heritage Foundation - a very political "think tank" with a decidedly conservative agenda - published a report saying that people who received public assistance aren't really that bad off, especially since they took in about $9,000 in tax free money and had luxury items like microwaves, air conditioning and LCD televisions. 

The report wasn't Heritages best work (then again, their standards aren't high), but it got the ball rolling. 

Then Forbes magazine jumped in (actually, they were already in). Writer William Baldwin played loose with his terms while describing who's "dependent on government" (government employees, pensioners, and welfare recipients). He followed this up with some Ayn Rand crazy talk about businesses being taxed to support the "takers" of society. Both allowed Baldwin to describe a financial "death spiral" in 11 states where there are more takers (anyone that works for the state) than workers (those who work in the private sector). 

Then, in spite of real evidence that provide some real numbers about public assistance in the state of California, Baldwin came up with this nonsense:

Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. 

This kind of lunacy should not be in the pages of Forbes. It really is Ayn Rand crazy talk run amok. 

Put another way, Baldwin is simply making stuff up. The average food stamp recipient in California gets about $149 per month, which disqualifies them from other services and programs. So, no matter how you stretch it, welfare recipients don't receive the equivalent of  $168 a day in free goodies. 

But none of this matters to those on the far right. As long as the electronic chain letter goes viral the point is made. 

THE $168 PER DAY WELFARE LIE THICKENS
After the $168 per day lie made the rounds from Heritage and Forbes to the conservative blogosphere Republican Senator Jeff Sessions (AL) decided to investigate. 

After listening to congressional testimony from the Heritage Fund's Robert Rector Senator Sessions asked his staffers to get the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to look into the matter. First they asked the CRS to tally the expenditures of more than 80 government programs, and then threw in what state governments contribute in aid. 

And just like that Senator Sessions claimed to have found over a trillion dollars in public assistance for the "takers" of society. And he was able to do this, like Forbes and the Heritage Foundation did, without justifying his categories, or having to mention which programs exclude you from other services. Nice. 

After getting the CRS report back Senate Republican staffers then issued a report, which was picked up by The Weekly Standard, which inferred that every recipient of government assistance magically has their hand in every one of the 80-plus government programs reviewed. They don't. But they had to make this assumption because it's the only way they can make their $168 a day math work. 

It didn't matter that not a single welfare recipient gets $168 per day in "cash" or indirect payments from public assistance. And it certainly didn't matter that federal welfare recipients actually receive something like $24 a day in benefits (there are cutoff points for this assistance too). 

To be sure, if you were a recipient of the financial sectors bailout programs you got far more than this. But the people involved in peddling the $168 a day lie don't care to talk about Wall Street's public sector gravy train. 

What really matters is that the notoriously partisan Heritage Foundation, Forbes magazine and a Republican Senator play fast with the categories and methods. Worse, they then believe their own spin of the facts. 

That, my friends, is all the right wing noise machine needed to run with a "$168 per day" story that is now part of our growing zone of cyber ignorance.

- Mark

UPDATE (7-25-13): I want to call your attention to the comments from "anonymous" below.  It really says everything we need to know about the $168 per day crowd ... ancedotal evidence ... ignores the larger story of how conservatives want to believe whatever floats their political boats (Come on, skewed polls? Seriously?) ... ignores, or can't understand, evidence from the links provided ... pounds chest about the persuasive of his ancedotal evidence to suggest the guppies of America are the issue while ignoring reckless tax cuts and the whales on Wall Street who are dragging our nation into financial ruin ... 

So Mark, I noticed you did not say how much you think people on full assistance do receive. So what is the figure? I worked a temp job with a gal, she regularly works temp jobs, lives with her boyfriend who is well employed/well paid and she gets 200.00 a month in food stamps and free medical insurance. I know kids who get AFDC (cash side of EBT card), Section 8 housing, free medical, food stamps, free school breakfast and lunch, backpacks full of food to take home for the weekend, reduced rate utilities, free cell service. So....what do you calculate....or the Fed figure that is worth? Interesting, when some of the kids I know have parents who have cash only businesses....no income declared...no taxes paid.

UPDATE (9-4-13): In the FYI category, FactCheck.org did some fact checking on the claim that 11 states have more people on welfare than working. It's not pretty for for those who like to make the claim. Here's what FactCheck.org has to say ... 

Then we have the Fox News claim that there are more welfare recipients than there are people working in full time jobs. You can find the truth here and here.

Stay tuned for additional updates.

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Here are some of the links so you can check this stuff out on your own ... 

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3886

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3164

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3793

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3886

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14343/gop_trillion_dollar_lie_welfare

http://www.politifact.com/subjects/welfare/

http://prospect.org/article/truth-about-welfare

http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/01/50-million-americans-on-welfare-not.html

http://www.ehow.com/info_8134012_myths-welfare.html

http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-astounding-new-right-wing-lie-about-economy-born