Category Archives: Culture

Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits – Real Time Economics – WSJ

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By Phil Izzo

49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011.

Half of U.S. households on federal benefits

Gimme the Bennies

Cutting government spending is no easy task, and it’s made more complicated by recent Census Bureau data showing that nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in a household that receives at least one government benefit, and many likely received more than one.

The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.

The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government.

via Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

The American Spectator : The Coming Cultural Disintegration

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By William Tucker
from the April 2012 issue

With his new book, Coming Apart, Charles Murray has once again changed the terms of debate in America. On Sunday, February 19, the New York Times ran a

page-one lead story headlined “For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage,” telling of the social cataclysm that is taking place right under our noses today:

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Written by Jason DeParle and Sylvia Tavernise, the story noted that the change appears to be occurring from the bottom up, with the white working class now adopting the cultural norms—or lack thereof—long associated with the African-American population.

Despite all the brouhaha about Murphy Brown, the fictional TV newscaster who elected for single motherhood, in reality upper-income, college-educated women remain largely immune to the contagion:

Read more here:  The American Spectator : The Coming Cultural Disintegration.