by Dan Mitchell | Feb 7, 2026 | Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
I wrote recently about how government handouts are creating dependency (perhaps deliberately) for low-income Americans, and I elaborated on this topic for Austin Peterson’s show. The real issue in this debate, as discussed in my two-part series...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 2, 2026 | Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Today’s column features a very depressing chart from a report published last year by the Congressional Budget Office and it shows that poor people now get about three-fourths of their “income” from handouts. That’s far different from the data in 1979, when poor people...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 23, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Yesterday’s column was about a new report from Olivier De Schutter, a bureaucrat at the United Nations who has the grandiose title of being the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Mr. De Schutter claims that the welfare state (he calls it “social...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 22, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
In 2018, I shared a visual that I referred to as the western world’s “most depressing chart.” It showed how the welfare state exploded in size after World War II and is now an enormous fiscal burden. This has been bad news for taxpayers, of course, but...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 13, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
A few years ago, advocates of a “basic income” seemed to have a lot of momentum on their side. Nations were holding referendums, presidential candidates were embracing the concept, and even some libertarians were saying nice things about the idea. Being a curmudgeon...
