Half of U.S. Household on the Dole

[JEast]

WSJ's number of the week --  49%.  Looking like Greece??  Numbers should subside after folks roll off unemployment benefits, but still a surprising number.

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/05/26/number-of-the-week-half-of-u-s-lives-in-household-getting-benefits/

 

 

Cheers

JEast

[Rabbitisrich]

Does anyone have the link to the Census figures? I couldn't locate it on the from the "releases" section.

[value-is-what-you-get]

Well if they really put their noses to the grindstone, they can be like us Canadians where 100% of households receive some sort of government benefit.

 

Another well-crafted headline designed to make us believe things are terrible.

 

The numbers in the Blog include Medicaid and Social security.  So here in Canada it's 100% of households.

 

The number of respondents living in a household where at least one family member received unemployment benefits was 2%.

[Uccmal]

Yes, another one of those oh so useful BS statistics.  Up there with "100 % chance of worldwode recession".

[Rabbitisrich]

So the article is the author's presentation of Census data, and not a transcription of a Census report? Social security and medicare shouldn't be included in the trend analysis without some discussion of demographic shift.