3 ms·

While I'm enjoying the clever "fraud" twist in the otherwise well-worn trope about welfare queens in left-leaning states, I'm genuinely confused as to where it

• treeman79 6y ago
  Welfare fraud was common and easy. My sister was 3rd generation on welfare. It was a bit before my time. But I’m guessing that welfare supporters dismissed concerns at that time as well. Of course I could be wrong, maybe all politicians knew about the fraud and honestly reported on how easy it was.
  • jeffbee 6y ago
    I do not choose to doubt your personal story (although, it sounds like fiction) but statistics on welfare fraud show that it is a small fraction of welfare program spending, and that the majority of such fraud is perpetrated by third parties, not beneficiaries. As an example Social Security disburses over a trillion dollars every year but estimates fraud costs them $355 million, much less than one tenth of one percent, basically zero. By contrast retail "shrinkage", or people stealing the inventory, amounts to 1.5% of US retail sales, and compliance with the federal income tax stands at merely 85%. So social spending looks pretty solid by comparison.