Welfare growth outpaces private sector workers

The United States had just 86 million full-time private-sector workers in 2012, compared with 148 million recipient of welfare benefits, according to U.S. Census numbers highlighted by CNS News.

Terence P. Jeffrey writes:

In 2012, according to the Census Bureau, approximately 103,087,000 people worked full-time, year-round in the United States. “A full-time, year-round worker is a person who worked 35 or more hours per week (full time) and 50 or more weeks during the previous calendar year (year round),” said the Census Bureau. “For school personnel, summer vacation is counted as weeks worked if they are scheduled to return to their job in the fall.”

Of the 103,087,000 full-time, year-round workers, 16,606,000 worked for the government. That included 12,597,000 who worked for state and local government and 4,009,000 who worked for the federal government.

The 86,429,000 Americans who worked full-time, year-round in the private sector, included 77,392,000 employed as wage and salary workers for private-sector enterprises and 9,037,000 who worked for themselves. (There were also approximately 52,000 who worked full-time, year-round without pay in a family enterprise.)

As Jeffrey notes, the Census also measures welfare enrollment. According to the Bureau, there were roughly 147.8 million Americans living in a household with one or more individuals accepting payments through a means-tested benefit program

“Eventually, there will be too few carrying too many, and America will break,” writes Jeffrey.