April 16, 2015

Rightwing lie about welfare exposed

Al Jazeera America - The majority of American families on public assistance or Medicaid are headed by at least one full-time worker, according to a report by the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education.

Researchers who analyzed annual state and federal spending on public assistance programs — including food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Aid to Needy Families and the earned income tax credit — found that more than 56 percent of that spending goes to working families.

In other words, employers, such fast-food restaurants, are paying their employees so little that they must rely on government assistance to make ends meet. In total, these employees seek an estimated $153 billion in public assistance each year. Some 46.5 million people use SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, to get by...

The need for public assistance wasn’t limited to fast-food workers, who have in recent years launched increasingly visible campaigns to demand a $15 per hour minimum wage and benefits. While slightly more than half of fast-food workers rely on assistance programs, the report said, child care and home health care workers do so 46 percent and 48 percent of the time, respectively. Some 25 percent of adjunct college professors also depend on public assistance programs.

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