bmac32 Loc: West Florida

THE WORK ETHIC WE INHERITED GROWING UP HAS FALLEN PREY TO THE 'WELFARE' SYSTEM


The Cato Institute released an updated 2013 study (original study in 1955) showing that welfare benefits pay more than a minimum wage job in 33 states and the District of Columbia. Even worse, welfare pays more than $15 per hour in 13 states. According to the study, welfare benefits have increased faster than minimum wage. It’s now more profitable to sit at home than it is to earn an honest day’s pay.

Hawaii is the biggest offender, where welfare recipients earn $29.13 per hour, or a $60,590 yearly salary, all for doing nothing.

Here is the list of the states where the pre-tax equivalent “salary” that welfare recipients receive is higher than having a job:

1. Hawaii : $60,590

2. District of Columbia : $50,820

3. Massachusetts : $50,540

4. Connecticut : $44,370

5. New York : $43,700

6. New Jersey : $43,450

7. Rhode Island : $43,330

8. Vermont : $42,350

9. New Hampshire : $39,750

10. Maryland : $38,160

11. California : $37,160

12. Oregon : $34,300

13. Wyoming : $32,620

14. Nevada : $29,820

15. Minnesota : $29,350

16. Delaware : $29,220

17. Washington : $28,840

18. North Dakota : $28,830

19. Pennsylvania : $28,670

20. New Mexico : $27,900

21. Montana : $26,930

22. South Dakota : $26,610

23. Kansas : $26,490

24. Michigan : $26,430

25. Alaska : $26,400

26. Ohio : $26,200

27. North Carolina : $25,760

28. West Virginia : $24,900

29. Alabama : $23,310

30. Indiana : $22,900

31. Missouri : $22,800

32. Oklahoma : $22,480

33. Louisiana : $22,250

34. South Carolina : $21,910



As a point of reference the average Middle Class annual income today is $50,000, down from $54,000 at the beginning of the Great Recession. Hawaii, DC, and Massachusetts pay more in welfare than the average working folks earn there. Is it any wonder that they stay home rather than look for a job. Time for a drastic change. America is virtually bankrupt.

Are we Nuts or what? How do we un-do this type of stupidity on the part of Americans?
This is crazy!

Salary of retired US Presidents
$180,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of House/Senate....$174,000 FOR LIFE
This is stupid.

Salary of Speaker of the House ....$223,500
FOR LIFE!
This is really stupid.

Salary of Majority/Minority Leader $193,400
FOR LIFE!
Ditto last line.

Average Salary of a teacher .. $40,065

Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN
AFGHANISTAN .. $38,000

Think about this.

Nancy Pelosi will retire as a Congress Person
at $174,000 Dollars a year for LIFE.
She has retired as SPEAKER at $223,500
a year.

PLUS she will receive an additional $193,400 a
year as Minority Leader.

That's
$803,700

Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical
which is not available to us .... the taxpayers

She is just one of the hundreds of Senators
and Congress that float in and out every
year!

I think we found where the cuts should be made!

rjoeholl

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

cold iron Loc: White House

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
And the left think's this is just fine. Well most of them do no paying into it.
I am moving to Hawaii next week.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Thank you for the information. Very informative.

Keep in mind that the Cato Institute was financed in the beginning by the Koch brothers, who started it and still finance it. Soros on the other hand, is the money behind ACORN, which was disbanded because of the massive voter fraud that it way responsible for which probably was responsible for many of the Democrat wins. when it was disbanded, it simply mutated into smaller infections financed by the admitted Communist Soros.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

ACORN is alive and well, just under several different names.

petertimber

It might be salubrious for the USA to be divided into4/5 separate nations according to their area interests and concerns which no other parts of the USA are interested or capable of dealing with. Each section would have their own President and the USA legal system would be operative in all nations. Borders would be local so Mexicans can walk across if THAT nation decided it doesn't mind having this debacle occur within the confines of their nation. Finance would be a matter of local economy with a token amount furnished to sustain Washington which would be reduced to dealing with all the nations on a foreign policy basis.All else would be LOCAL. At least we could see where the money gyrates in each nation. If one of the nations goes dipsy and wild the others can step in and set up a temporary dictatorship to get rid of the bad guys.

just chris

Your post is a chain e-mail rated" pants on fire" perhaps you should fact check before posting and by the wat your post was correct about millitary pay.Review PolitiFact.com

JimMe

I CAN NOW UNDERATAND WHY THE DEMLIB-SOCIALISTS ARE LOOKING FOR $15 PER HR MINIMUM WAGE... Their Welfarers are getting that ALREADY...

just chris

The hike minimum wage preposed 10.10 hour not 15.00 but don't let a little thing like facts get in the way

Onelittlevoice

Does the salary for life apply to a member of congress no matter how long they serve? If so, would that mean that the guy who took Obama's place for one month gets that for life? Someone might be laughing all the way to the bank. Of course, that bank MAY be in another country, just for safety sake.

Bigmac495 Loc: Indiana

I agree, and after 4 years they can get this retirement! Almost 90% of those people on welfare are getting more a year than I receive per year to live on! But it's WAY too easy to spend some else's money. We might have been better off under the English rulers ! Our government has turned into a giant Ponzi scheme

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

The desired minimum wage hike was hoped to be $15.00 per hour, but the Democrat "progressives" realized that the business men who provide jobs in the country would not go for that, so they proposed $10.50 as a way to go to $15.00 in a part way there temporary approach. then in a year or so they would move up to the desired $15.00. They are apparently not aware or not concerned that the people who make minimum wage are usually working at low or no skill jobs that are meant to be a starting place to learn how to work, not a lifetime employment opportunity.

RetNavyCWO Loc: VA suburb of DC

From Politifact:

Can members of Congress retire with full pay after just one term?

Pants on Fire!

Political trends come and go, but the classics endure.

Such is the case with a chain email PolitiFact Ohio received to start the new year. When we received a nearly identical version a couple of years ago, we said it could be "a new classic of the genre."

The email claims that Congress gets special perks nobody else does; complains that a complacent media ignores the news, and requests that recipients of the email forward it on to 20 more people.

We examined one of the special perks mentioned in the email, that "the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans." The claim is confusingly worded, but we assumed that it referred to relatives of members of Congress and Congressional staffers.

We gave the statement a rating of Pants on Fire because it was (and is) ridiculously false. Relatives of members of Congress and Congressional staffers have to pay back their loans like everyone else.

But the still-circulating email contains another claim that several readers have asked about in recent days: that members of Congress can "retire with the same pay after only one term."

This claim is a classic in its own right. Our friends at the urban legend checker Snopes.com say it has been circulating in various chain emails since at least 2000.

The claim means that rank-and-file members of the House of Representatives would receive full pay of $174,000 per year, for the rest of their lives, after serving as little as two years.

Nice work if you can get it. But members of Congress can't.

A report on "Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress," prepared in November by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, outlines how pension benefits are calculated.

The key provision: no member of Congress is eligible for any pension unless he or she has served in Congress for at least five years. (Senators serve six-year terms; House members must seek reelection every two years.)

To collect, a congressman or senator must be age 62, or be at least age 50 with 20 years of service, or be any age with 25 years of service.

Under the most recent pension program, adopted in 1984, the size of a pension is based on the highest three years of a member's salary, the number of years of service and a multiplier, which is 1.7 percent for the first 20 years of service and 1.0 percent for subsequent years.

Here’s an example, using a typical 25-year rank-and-file member who retired this year. The pension would be the sum of two calculations. First, multiply $172,443 [the average salary over the last three years] times 20 years times 0.017. Then, multiply $172,443 times 5 years times 0.01 and add that number to the first calculation. The total: about $67,250 per year.

A three-term congressman (or one-term senator) who has now reached retirement age would be eligible for an annual pension of $17,588 for six years of work. That's generous, but not close to full pay.

Federal law prevents members of Congress from getting full-pay retirement when they leave office. The report says, "By law, the starting amount of a member's retirement annuity may not exceed 80 percent of his or her final salary."

Under the formula, it would take 67 years of service to hit that limit.

So the email saying that members of Congress can "receive full pay retirement after serving one term" is blatantly bogus. It's never full pay and the only one-term members who would be eligible for any pension would be senators.

Snopes.com rated the pension claim as False. Our colleagues at FactCheck.org have also debunked the claim -- which, over the years, has been accompanied by assertions that members of Congress don't pay into their Social Security (they have since 1984) or that they don't contribute anything toward their retirement (they do).

For a bogus claim that’s been circulating at least 13 years, and for anyone who still spreads it, we’ll break out the matches. Pants on Fire!

RetNavyCWO Loc: VA suburb of DC

From Politifact:

Can members of Congress retire with full pay after just one term?

Pants on Fire!

Political trends come and go, but the classics endure.

Such is the case with a chain email PolitiFact Ohio received to start the new year. When we received a nearly identical version a couple of years ago, we said it could be "a new classic of the genre."

The email claims that Congress gets special perks nobody else does; complains that a complacent media ignores the news, and requests that recipients of the email forward it on to 20 more people.

We examined one of the special perks mentioned in the email, that "the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans." The claim is confusingly worded, but we assumed that it referred to relatives of members of Congress and Congressional staffers.

We gave the statement a rating of Pants on Fire because it was (and is) ridiculously false. Relatives of members of Congress and Congressional staffers have to pay back their loans like everyone else.

But the still-circulating email contains another claim that several readers have asked about in recent days: that members of Congress can "retire with the same pay after only one term."

This claim is a classic in its own right. Our friends at the urban legend checker Snopes.com say it has been circulating in various chain emails since at least 2000.

The claim means that rank-and-file members of the House of Representatives would receive full pay of $174,000 per year, for the rest of their lives, after serving as little as two years.

Nice work if you can get it. But members of Congress can't.

A report on "Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress," prepared in November by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, outlines how pension benefits are calculated.

The key provision: no member of Congress is eligible for any pension unless he or she has served in Congress for at least five years. (Senators serve six-year terms; House members must seek reelection every two years.)

To collect, a congressman or senator must be age 62, or be at least age 50 with 20 years of service, or be any age with 25 years of service.

Under the most recent pension program, adopted in 1984, the size of a pension is based on the highest three years of a member's salary, the number of years of service and a multiplier, which is 1.7 percent for the first 20 years of service and 1.0 percent for subsequent years.

Here’s an example, using a typical 25-year rank-and-file member who retired this year. The pension would be the sum of two calculations. First, multiply $172,443 [the average salary over the last three years] times 20 years times 0.017. Then, multiply $172,443 times 5 years times 0.01 and add that number to the first calculation. The total: about $67,250 per year.

A three-term congressman (or one-term senator) who has now reached retirement age would be eligible for an annual pension of $17,588 for six years of work. That's generous, but not close to full pay.

Federal law prevents members of Congress from getting full-pay retirement when they leave office. The report says, "By law, the starting amount of a member's retirement annuity may not exceed 80 percent of his or her final salary."

Under the formula, it would take 67 years of service to hit that limit.

So the email saying that members of Congress can "receive full pay retirement after serving one term" is blatantly bogus. It's never full pay and the only one-term members who would be eligible for any pension would be senators.

Snopes.com rated the pension claim as False. Our colleagues at FactCheck.org have also debunked the claim -- which, over the years, has been accompanied by assertions that members of Congress don't pay into their Social Security (they have since 1984) or that they don't contribute anything toward their retirement (they do).

For a bogus claim that’s been circulating at least 13 years, and for anyone who still spreads it, we’ll break out the matches. Pants on Fire!

3jack

Here....let me post the rest of the chain mail BS story for you, or did you think no one would check your post for accuracy.

Let’s turn to the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, which explains laws so even lawmakers can understand them.

• Members of Congress earn their $174,000 salaries only during their elected terms. (Nope, not for life.)

• They’re eligible for congressional pensions only after five years of service. (For a member of the House, that would mean getting elected to office at least three times.)

Those pensions can’t be tapped until retirement age — and can’t be collected while a lawmaker still gets a federal salary. So John Kerry, for example, can’t collect his congressional pension while he serves as secretary of state, according to Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union.

• The size of the pension depends on years of service and the average of a lawmaker’s highest three years of salary. The exact formula depends on when they started. Meanwhile, every paycheck, lawmakers contribute to both their pensions and Social Security.

• Most congressional pensions are nowhere near a lawmaker’s salary. Under a pre-1984 retirement formula, it couldn’t be more than 80 percent of a lawmaker’s final salary, not counting cost-of-living adjustments. Under current rules, lawmakers could theoretically get more than 80 percent of their salary, but most would need to serve more than 66 years to get that.

Would House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi get "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical"?

The email writer gets a whole host of things wrong here.

The message claims Pelosi will retire as a member of Congress making $174,000 — and that she’ll earn it annually, for life, on top of her full speaker’s salary of $223,500 and minority leader’s salary of $193,400, for a whopping "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical."

Nope.

Congressional leaders do get paid more than other lawmakers. The speaker of the House earns $223,500. The House minority leader earns $193,400. That’s more than the $174,000 earned by the rank and file. But those are annual salaries that leaders earn while they hold their titles, not lifetime guarantees that get stacked on top of one another.

• First, even if her pension did equal all three salaries, they add up to $590,900, not $803,700. (Unless perhaps the writer’s suggesting the "free medical" is worth $212,800 a year. Talk about rising health care costs!)

• Second, that’s not how it works. See above.

• Third, lawmakers don’t get "free medical." They pay a portion of their health insurance premiums, co-pays and co-insurance and can face a deductible, just like a lot of workers with employer-based health care. In January, their employer-offered health insurance will be a choice of plans offered on Obamacare’s federal exchange.

Pelosi’s higher salary as House speaker from 2007-11 will boost her pension. But the congresswoman, who’s been in office since 1987, would have to work at least two more decades for her starting pension to match a regular lawmaker’s pay, much less $803,700.

She’s 73.

And, oh, by the way, lawmakers haven’t given themselves a pay raise since January 2009.

We’re not saying they’re earning their keep.

But perhaps it’ll make you feel slightly better that their salaries this year hit their lowest inflation-adjusted levels since December 1990. And that more than 200 of them were refusing pay while the government was closed.

Our ruling

A viral message claims congressional lawmakers earn their salaries "FOR LIFE," which for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would add up to "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical."

Lawmakers don’t earn a salary after their terms end. They may earn pensions based on years of service, but those don’t start until retirement. They don’t get "free medical."

It might feel good to click Forward. But it wouldn’t make this claim any less Pants on Fire.