CHART: Paul Ryan Lays Out a Vision for Reforming Welfare, Fighting Poverty

In his speech today at Cleveland State University, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) laid out a vision for reforming the nation’s approach to poverty.

“With few exceptions, government’s approach has been to spend lots of money on centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs,” Ryan stated. “The mindset behind this approach is that a nation should measure compassion by the size of the federal government and how much it spends.” This has “created and perpetuated a debilitating culture of dependency, wrecking families and communities.”

He’s right. Since the “War on Poverty” began five decades ago, the federal government hasspent nearly $20 trillion (adjusted for inflation) on what is now a welfare system consisting of over 80 programs. Total annual spending is now approaching $1 trillion. See our newly updated chart: (continues below chart)

The Foundry

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Americans’ Incomes Have Fallen $3,040 During the Obama “Recovery”…

Americans must be wondering how much more of this “recovery” they can afford.  New figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, compiled by Sentier Research, show that the typical American household’s real (inflation-adjusted) income has actually dropped 5.7 percent during the Obama “recovery.”  Using constant 2012 dollars (to adjust for inflation), the median annual income of American households was $53,718 as of June 2009, the last month of the recession.  Now, after 38 months of this “recovery,” it has fallen to $50,678 — a drop of $3,040 per household. 

Yet it gets worse.  Amazingly, incomes have dropped even more during the “recovery” than they did during the recession.  In fact, they’ve dropped more than twice as much as they did during the recession.  From the start to the end of the recession, the real median income of American households fell $1,413, or 2.6 percent.  From the end of the recession to the present day, it has dropped $3,040, or 5.7 percent.  This begs the question:  What kind of “recovery” compares unfavorably with the recession from which it’s ostensibly recovering?

Via: Weekly Standard

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Median income in Ohio hits 27-year low

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF OBAMA POLICIES WORKING THEIR MAGIC.  

Ohio households were poorer last year than they’ve been in more than 25 years, and the number of people living in poverty is higher than it’s been in more than 30 years, according to a census report released yesterday.

“People are getting squeezed from every direction,” said James Newton, chief economic adviser to Commerce National Bank.

When adjusted for inflation, the 2010 annual median household income in Ohio of $46,093 was down by $543 from the previous year, and down 15.3 percent from the peak of $54,395 in 2000, according to the census’s Current Population Survey, which was released yesterday.

The inflation-adjusted figure hasn’t been lower for Ohio since officials began keeping that record in 1984, census officials said.

Ohio’s level of poverty — 15.3 percent — was worse than the nation’s, which was at 15.1 percent. Ohio’s level jumped 2 percentage points from 2009; it has never been this high since those records were first kept in 1980.

The worst year before 2010 was 1994, when 14.1 percent of Ohioans were in poverty.

Via: The Columbus Dispatch

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