Transfer payment programs include Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,
unemployment and disability, food stamps, and veterans’ benefits.
Transfer
payments increased from 8 percent of U.S. total income in 1970 to 18
percent today, the report states, crowding out private income from wages
and investments.
“There is a large range of experiences driving
transfer reliance across communities,” Benjamin Glasner, EIG economist
and one of the report’s authors, told The Epoch Times. “But it’s
unavoidable to look at the fact that transfer reliance has grown rapidly
across the country, and it’s something we need to deal with.”
According
to Federal Reserve data, government transfer payments increased from
about $70 billion in 1970 to more than $6 trillion in 2020, during the
COVID-19 pandemic, before falling back to the current level of $4.3
trillion. According to the EIG report, if government transfer payments
were spread evenly among all Americans, they would have amounted to an
annual payment of $11,500 per person in 2022.
One factor driving
much of the shift from private income to government dependence is that
the U.S. population is, on average, getting older. According to
demographic data
from USAfacts, the percentage of Americans 65 years and older increased
from 13.1 percent of the population in 2010 to 17.3 percent in 2022.
During the same period, the percentage of Americans under the age of 20
fell from 26.9 percent to 24.4 percent....<<<Read More>>>...
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