10 Numbers That Prove That We Are Rapidly Becoming A Nation Of Government Dependents

By Michael Snyder

​As the middle class disintegrates and poverty grows, more Americans than ever are becoming dependent on the government just to survive.  Today, we live in a country where most workers do not earn enough to support a middle class family, and we are seeing the homelessness crisis spiral out of control in major cities on both coasts.  During this election cycle, many conservatives have been freaking out that an increasing number of Democrats are openly embracing socialism, but the truth is that we are already most of the way to becoming a socialist country.  In fact, as you will see below, more than half of all Americans currently receive more money from the government than they pay in taxes.  We have become absolutely addicted to government money, and this is one of the major trends that is eating away at our nation like cancer.

The government is not supposed to take care of us from the cradle to the grave.

Rather, our founders understood that the proper role of government is to create and protect an environment of liberty and freedom where we would be empowered to take care of ourselves.

Today, most Americans cannot independently take care of themselves, and that makes them dependents.  And when you are a dependent, you aren’t really free.

One of the reasons why I write so much about the decline of the middle class is because it is an existential threat to our way of life.  If you look around the world, or if you go back through history, you will see that tyrannical regimes tend to thrive when populations are poor and cannot stand up for themselves.  If we want our Republic to survive, we need a strong, independent population that is not economically dependent on the government.  That is what we had throughout most of our history, and that is now what we are rapidly losing.

Just because you are working does not mean that you are independent.  At this point, most jobs do not pay enough to support a middle class family, and the ranks of the “working poor” continue to explode.  In reality, Americans are working harder than ever in 2018, and yet things continue to deteriorate.

The following are a few numbers that prove that we are rapidly becoming a nation of government dependents…

–Over half the country now receives more in government transfer payments than they pay in taxes.
-According to one recent survey, the cost of living is higher than the median income in 42 U.S. states.
-Today, 50 percent of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year.
–62 percent of Americans say that their financial situations have not improved since the last presidential election.

And here are six more from my friend Alan Yerushalmi…

• According to a FED report, about 40 percent of adults in the U.S. said that if faced with a $400 unexpected expense, they would either not be able to pay it or would do so by selling something or borrowing money
• Almost 1 in 3 U.S. households have challenges paying energy bills
• About 40% of the American middle class face poverty in retirement
• 1 in 3 Americans have hardly any retirement savings
• Those over 65 have been filing for bankruptcy in droves
• Health spending per capita in the U.S. increased nearly 29 fold in the past 40 years, outpacing the growth of the economy

If things are this bad now, how dreadful will the outlook be once we are deep into the next recession?

Read the rest of this article at The Economic Collapse Blog.