Chart 'o the day: "shared" sacrifice
by digby
Contrary to Paul Ryan's exhortation to withdraw the "hammock" that's making the parasites all lazy and dependent, it turns out that the so-called entitlements are going to the working poor with kids or the old and sick. I'm sure all of them would be thrilled to work at Bain Capital if they could, but sadly Bain doesn't seem to be many hiring janitors, retirees, children or quadriplegics at the moment.
Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work. A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work. This figure has changed little in the past few years.[...]
Contrary to claims that entitlements take heavily from the middle class to give to people at the bottom or shower benefits on the very wealthy, the middle 60 percent of the population receives close to 60 percent of the entitlement benefits, while the top 5 percent of the population receives about 3 percent of the benefits.
Non-Hispanic whites receive slightly more than their proportionate share of entitlement benefits. They accounted for 64 percent of the population in 2010 and received 69 percent of the entitlement benefits.
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