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"Despite having just 12 percent of the national population, California represents nearly a third of all Americans on welfare. [...] In Texas, 6 percent of famil

by watt 8y ago

"Despite having just 12 percent of the national population, California represents nearly a third of all Americans on welfare. [...] In Texas, 6 percent of families in poverty receive welfare. In California, the figure is 66 percent. " I don't know how welfare works in USA, but if it's a federal level program, it would seem California is pulling a pretty clever hack there.

maxerickson 8y ago
It's basically impossible to analyze without knowing how the writer is defining the various terms. It's likely one factor is Medicaid expansion, which California participates in and Texas not. A significant percentage of those dollars are federal.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I don't know how welfare works in USA, but if it's a federal level program, it would seem California is pulling a pretty clever hack there. Welfare isn't a program, it's many different programs, almost none of which are fully federally funded, and where (because of its strong aggregate economy despite poor distributional features) California gets less federal cost sharing than most other states (the absolute minimum) in most components that are partly federally funded with a variable federal share. California also has some of the most expansive state (or local) funds only welfare programs. And, bottom line, California pays more federal taxes than it gets federal spending, unlike lots of poorer states; in summary, it's not hacking anything here. Also, the 6 vs. 66 number for Texas vs California is almost certainly using the federal poverty line, not the local CoL-adjusted poverty figure as the base universe. California, on average, has a much higher cost of living than Texas, or the US as a whole, and so the comparison doesn't actually represent those actually in poverty.
- rayiner 8y ago
  On the new supplemental poverty measure, which accounts for cost of living, California is at 19% and Texas is at 15%: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-265.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio....

by watt 8y ago

maxerickson 8y ago

It's basically impossible to analyze without knowing how the writer is defining the various terms. It's likely one factor is Medicaid expansion, which California participates in and Texas not. A significant percentage of those dollars are federal.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I don't know how welfare works in USA, but if it's a federal level program, it would seem California is pulling a pretty clever hack there. Welfare isn't a program, it's many different programs, almost none of which are fully federally funded, and where (because of its strong aggregate economy despite poor distributional features) California gets less federal cost sharing than most other states (the absolute minimum) in most components that are partly federally funded with a variable federal share. California also has some of the most expansive state (or local) funds only welfare programs. And, bottom line, California pays more federal taxes than it gets federal spending, unlike lots of poorer states; in summary, it's not hacking anything here. Also, the 6 vs. 66 number for Texas vs California is almost certainly using the federal poverty line, not the local CoL-adjusted poverty figure as the base universe. California, on average, has a much higher cost of living than Texas, or the US as a whole, and so the comparison doesn't actually represent those actually in poverty.

rayiner 8y ago
On the new supplemental poverty measure, which accounts for cost of living, California is at 19% and Texas is at 15%: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-265.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio....