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Credit: New York Times

The American social safety net is back in the news, and not just because Mitt Romney acknowledged, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." This week, the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University revealed that a third of Americans now receive Medicaid, food stamps or other means-based government assistance, a number that climbs to 148 million when Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits are factored in. The next day, the conservative Heritage Foundation fretted that its "Index of Dependence on Government" rose 8.1 percent last year. Then on Sunday, the New York Times detailed that the so-called safety net now delivers most its benefits to middle class Americans, including many who denounce the very government programs which now sustain them.

But while the torrent of new reports provides fodder for partisans of all stripes (myself included), the picture of the frayed U.S. safety net is a complex one. What conservatives routinely decry as government largesse for the undeserving poor is a hodge-podge of programs which increasingly support the middle class and, above all, the elderly.

Here, then, are five things I found caught in the safety net.

1. Universal Programs vs. Means-Tested Benefits

Eager to reinforce their narrative, conservatives tend to play fast and loose with what's actually in the safety net. As this Politico summary of the Heritage Foundation 2012 government dependency index shows, safety net critics intentionally conflate universal programs like Social Security and Medicare with means-tested aide like food stamps, housing assistance and welfare payments:

Since the 2008 index, the American people's dependence on government has grown a whopping 23 percent.

One in five Americans -- or slightly more than 67 million -- now relies on federal assistance...Overall, about 70 percent of the federal government's budget is directed to individual assistance programs. And nearly half of the population, or 49.5 percent, don't pay any federal income taxes, according to the survey.

Of course, virtually all working Americans pay Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes; programs whose growth accounts for most of the expansion of federal domestic spending. Since 1965, Social Security and Medicare have helped reduce poverty among the elderly by two-thirds. (Just as important, bipartisan support for the Earned Income Tax Credit and other tax credits have trimmed the numbers of working Americans who owe Uncle Sam each year.) That's why it was so refreshing to see at least one right-wing blogger react to Sunday's New York Times piece by complaining, "Wait - Medicare is now a "safety net" program? I thought that, like Social Security, it was an earned benefit - we all paid our taxes, and we are all eligible."

2. Complain and Ye Shall Receive

To be sure, the conservative commentariat is none too happy to see The New York Times once again highlight the hypocrisy of government spending critics happily (or often, unknowingly) receiving payments from Washington. For example, there's the case of Ki Gulbranson, a Minnesotan who earns $39,000 a year and, The Times claims, "wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government":

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region's long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

Gulbranson has plenty of company within the ranks of the Tea Party. 2009 data from Public Policy Polling revealed that while 39 percent of all Americans responded that the government should "stay out of Medicare," 59 percent of self-identified conservatives and 62 percent of McCain voters hold that oxymoronic view. As The New York Times reported on its joint survey with CBS of Tea Party members in April 2010, "Despite their push for smaller government, they think that Social Security and Medicare are worth the cost to taxpayers." 62-year-old Tea Party supporter Jodine White acknowledged to The Times what her desire to slash government spending would produce:

"That's a conundrum, isn't it? I don't know what to say. Maybe I don't want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security." She added, "I didn't look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I've changed my mind."

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I don't think this is as simple as people faking injuries in order to stay afloat. A lot of middle-aged people with disabilities would rather work, and used to be able to find jobs that made working possible. Now the options have been choked off (along with their health insurance) and health conditions are getting worse, as they tend to do with age. But of course that's not how the politicians will spin it. The Wall St. Journal:

Many poor Americans seek Social Security disability payments as a financial life preserver when their unemployment benefits begin expiring, preliminary research by two economists shows.

The findings, released by the Obama administration Thursday, are based on interviews with unemployed workers for a study conducted by White House Council of Economic Advisers Director Alan Krueger and Andreas Mueller of Columbia Business School. Mr. Krueger recently joined the White House from his post teaching economics at Princeton University.

The findings offer a new window both into the struggles of the poor and the growing financial strain of one of the country’s largest entitlement programs.

Their research found that close to 10% of Americans between the ages of 50 and 65 who didn’t have access to at least $5,000 applied for Social Security disability benefits by the time their unemployment benefits were set to expire. The percent of this group seeking the benefits rose precipitously in the weeks leading up to the exhaustion of benefits, as it was below 1% with 50 weeks left in unemployment benefits.

Jobless Americans in this age range who had access to at least $5,000 were much less likely to seek SSDI benefits at any point while collecting unemployment benefits.

There has long been a relationship between unemployment rates and applications for disability benefits, with more Americans seeking entry into the program when it’s harder to find a job.

It's never been more obvious that the unemployed have no one looking out for them. This is really a shocking story and if you still have a Bank of America account, this might finally motivate you to move your money:

CORDOVA, S.C.-- Shawana Busby does not seem like the sort of customer who would be at the center of a major bank's business plan. Out of work for much of the last three years, she depends upon a $264-a-week unemployment check from the state of South Carolina. But the state has contracted with Bank of America to administer its unemployment benefits, and Busby has frequently found herself incurring bank fees to get her money.

To withdraw her benefits, Busby, 33, uses a Bank of America prepaid debit card on which the state deposits her funds. She could visit a Bank of America ATM free of charge. But this small community in the state's rural center, her hometown, does not have a Bank of America branch. Neither do the surrounding towns where she drops off her kids at school and attends church.

She could drive north to Columbia, the state capital, and use a Bank of America ATM there. But that entails a 50-mile drive, cutting into her gas budget. So Busby visits the ATMs in her area and begrudgingly accepts the fees, which reach as high as five dollars per transaction. She estimates that she has paid at least $350 in fees to tap her unemployment benefits.

"It really boggles my mind," she said. "This bank is taking little bits of money out of thousands of pockets, including mine."

Bank of America recently aborted plans to charge ordinary banking customers $5 a month to use their debit cards in the face of national outrage. But the bank has quietly continued to mine another source of fees: jobless people who depend upon the bank's prepaid debit cards to tap their benefits. Bank of America and other financial firms -- including U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase -- have secured contracts to provide access to public benefits in 41 states. These contracts typically allow banks to collect unlimited fees from merchants and consumers.

In short, the same banks whose speculation delivered a financial crisis that has destroyed millions of jobs have figured out how to turn widespread unemployment into a profit center: The larger the number of people who are out of work and dependent upon the state for sustenance, the greater the potential gains through administering their benefits.

Not that this study will make much of an impact anyway, because we all know worry about job growth isn't the real reason the House majority won't extend unemployment benefits. They simply want people to be so desperate, they'll even vote for Republicans:

Generous unemployment benefits have had little effect on the unemployment rate, according to a new study that may help ease concerns that benefits give sidelined Americans a disincentive to hunt for jobs.

Yes, because not being able to pay your mortgage, buy food or put gas in the tank isn't quite disincentive enough. Sometimes I think these economists would get better results if they became voodoo doctors.

Unemployment insurance, which is available for up to 99 weeks in some states, nudged the jobless rate up 0.2 to 0.6 of a percentage point higher than it would have been otherwise, according to a new paper by Jesse Rothstein, a University of California, Berkeley economist and released at the Brookings Institution this week.

“Any negative effects of the recent unemployment insurance extensions on job search are clearly quite small, too small to outweigh the benefits of transfers to people who have been out of work for over a year in conditions where job-finding prospects are bleak,” according to the report.

Economists generally agree that extended jobless benefits increase the unemployment rate. But they disagree on how big the effect is and how damaging that is to the economy.

Generous unemployment insurance can increase joblessness if Americans who are out of work don’t search as hard as they otherwise would have for new jobs. They can also give recipients a reason to hold out for better-paying jobs. Those impacts can be a negative for the economy because it means instead of reentering the job market, sidelined workers are relying on the government for assistance and staying unemployed for longer.

Yes, because as any austerity cheerleader will tell you, it's very important that workers get used to the fact that they're now permanently competing for Third World wages.

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'Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?'

Here's what I suggest for anyone who's losing their unemployment payments this week: Grab a blanket and a pillow, and head on over to your local congressperson's office -- or, if you live in a big city, go to your senator's office. Tell them you can't afford to turn on the heat, and you're going to camp out in their waiting room until the congressman or senator has time to talk to you. And since you don't have money for food, either, I suggest you loudly solicit the staff and incoming visitors for cash.

Because I am so goddamned sick of these bastards and the protected little bubbles in which they live. It's time we did what we could to remind them of the consequences of everything they've done -- or failed to do:

WASHINGTON -- Food banks across the country are watching for the end of federally-funded extended unemployment insurance.

"We are bracing for it," said Vicki Escarra, CEO of Feeding America, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief charity, in an interview with HuffPost. Escarra said that Feeding America's 200 member food banks across the country feed nearly six million people every week.

"I can assure you, if these unemployment insurance benefits are not reinstated we'll see these numbers go way up," Escarra said.

Two federal programs -- Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits, which together provide up to 73 weeks of jobless aid on top of 26 weeks of state aid -- are set to begin to expire this week because Congress has not reauthorized them. According to the Labor Department, two million long-term unemployed will be dropped from the programs by the end of December if Congress does not act.

Congress allowed benefits to lapse twice for a brief time earlier this year, and once for a long time, when 2.5 million had their benefits interrupted for nearly two months over the summer. The path forward for reauthorizing the benefits is unclear, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday that he wants the benefits preserved as part of a deal to reauthorize the also-expiring Bush-era tax cuts.

The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that extended unemployment benefits prevented record poverty in 2009 and were used mostly by middle-class Americans. Households with total income more than twice the poverty threshold received 70 percent of the $120 billion the federal government spent on unemployment benefits last year. Part of the reason is that the benefits themselves push families into higher-income groups.

A study released by Feeding America this year found that of the 37 million people served by its member food banks, 70 percent came from households with incomes below the poverty line. The study found that 5.7 million people received emergency food assistance in 2009, a 27 percent increase from 2006.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the eve of midterms elections that could make him House Speaker, John Boehner announced, "This is not a time for compromise." His lieutenant Mike Pence (R-IN) echoed that line, declaring that with a new Republican majority "there will be no compromise" with President Obama and the Democrats. Of course, with their record-setting use of the filibuster, unprecedented obstruction of presidential nominees, and unified no votes on almost every major piece of legislation, the past performance of Congressional Republicans is a guarantee of future results.

Even before Barack Obama took the oath office, Republicans leaders, conservative think-tanks and right-wing pundits were calling for total obstruction of the new president's agenda. Bill Kristol, who helped block Bill Clinton's health care reform attempt in 1993, called for history to repeat on the Obama stimulus - and everything else. Pointing with pride to the Clinton economic program which received exactly zero GOP votes in either House, Kristol in January 2009 advised:

"That it made, that it made it so much easier to then defeat his health care initiative. So, it's very important for Republicans who think they're going to have to fight later on on health care, fight later on maybe on some of the bank bailout legislation, fight later on on all kinds of issues.."

And so, as the table above reveals, it came to pass.

On issue after issue, even when President Obama extended his hand, Republicans showed him the back of theirs. Despite dedicating 40% of the $787 billion stimulus package to tax cuts (making it, as Steve Benen noted, the "biggest tax cut ever"), Obama got no GOP votes in the House and only three in the Senate. Months of painful concessions to supposedly moderate Senate Republicans only served to produce a watered-down health care bill - and no GOP support.

Time after time, President Obama could count the votes he received from Congressional Republicans on the fingers (usually the middle) of one hand. The expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) to four million more American kids earned the backing of a whopping eight GOP Senators. (One of them, Arlen Specter, later became a Democrat.) Badly needed Wall Street reform eventually overcame GOP filibusters to pass with the support of just three Republicans in the House and Senate, respectively. This summer, it took 50 days for President Obama to get past Republican filibusters of extended unemployment benefits and the Small Business Jobs Act. As for the DISCLOSE Act, legislation designed to limit the torrent of secret campaign cash unleashed by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, in September Republican Senators prevented it from ever coming to a vote.

And when they weren't showing up to vote no on President Obama's initiatives, Senate Republicans blocked voting altogether.

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I thought this was fascinating. Sure, they're entitled to the money - but I can't imagine an unemployment check being much help with the bills when you're in this income bracket:

After the economy slipped into recession in 2008, millions of Americans received unemployment benefits to make ends meet -- including almost 3,000 millionaires.

According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1 million in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6 million in jobless aid. They included 806 taxpayers with incomes over $2 million and 17 with incomes in excess of $10 million. In all, multimillionaires reported receiving $5.2 million in jobless benefits.

Those numbers are a minuscule fraction of the 9.5 million taxpayers who reported receiving $43.7 billion from jobless benefits in 2008, up from 7.6 million recipients reporting $29.4 billion in benefits in 2007. Still, economists said they are surprised so many people with seven-figure incomes claimed benefits.

“It’s a larger number than I would have expected,” said Alan Viard, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research organization. “But, people at any income level can lose their jobs.”

The first 26 weeks of unemployment benefits are paid by states. Nationally, benefits average about $300 per week. Because unemployment benefits are insurance, funded with taxes paid by employers, the program isn’t need-based like welfare. A millionaire who loses his or her job is entitled to benefits the same as a laid-off factory or restaurant worker, Viard said.

After the economy slipped into recession in 2008, millions of Americans received unemployment benefits to make ends meet -- including almost 3,000 millionaires.

According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1 million in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6 million in jobless aid. They included 806 taxpayers with incomes over $2 million and 17 with incomes in excess of $10 million. In all, multimillionaires reported receiving $5.2 million in jobless benefits.

Those numbers are a minuscule fraction of the 9.5 million taxpayers who reported receiving $43.7 billion from jobless benefits in 2008, up from 7.6 million recipients reporting $29.4 billion in benefits in 2007. Still, economists said they are surprised so many people with seven-figure incomes claimed benefits.

“It’s a larger number than I would have expected,” said Alan Viard, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research organization. “But, people at any income level can lose their jobs.”

The first 26 weeks of unemployment benefits are paid by states. Nationally, benefits average about $300 per week. Because unemployment benefits are insurance, funded with taxes paid by employers, the program isn’t need-based like welfare. A millionaire who loses his or her job is entitled to benefits the same as a laid-off factory or restaurant worker, Viard said.

Good for Keith Olbermann for taking on Newt Gingrich's ugly characterization of people on unemployment as slackers for refusing to take jobs that would actually put them deeper in the hole. Susie Madrak wrote about the Wall Street Journal article referred to in this segment on Countdown last night where employers were complaining that they have jobs, but people aren't taking them.

Newt Gingrich then piled on to the deadbeat drumbeat of the Republicans with this little salvo:

For instance, the extension of unemployment benefits has given people a perverse incentive to stay on unemployment rather than accept a job. The part-owner of a machine parts company, Mechanical Devices, is looking for as many as 40 new engineers, but is quoted in the article as saying many applicants at job fairs were “just going through the motions so they could collect their unemployment checks.” The article also quotes an engineer who admits he turned down more than a dozen offers because the salary would have been less than he made on welfare.

This story encapsulates the problem of the long-term unemployed. The depth and length of this recession is at risk of creating a permanent pool of unemployed Americans, who get so used to being unproductive that they are willing to accept welfare indefinitely instead of taking a job.

I would just like to say this to Newt directly: Screw you, idiot. The nerve of this man to point his finger at me and people like me is just infuriating. Because if anyone represents a welfare queen, it's Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich lives on the donations of wealthy patrons, similar to a courtesan. He flies on private jets with those donations, rents his limos with those donations, eats at exclusive restaurants with those donations, and spews crap at people who paid for over 30 years into unemployment insurance and calls them welfare queens.

Who's the welfare queen? The guy who uses the safety net he paid for, or the guy who takes millions of dollars from oil companies, insurance companies, and other corporate interests to live high on the hog while doing nothing other than pointing his fingers at others?

Screw that. And screw him.

Full transcript of the Olbermann segment, where the man referred to in the WSJ article says basically the same thing in nicer words follows.

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It really is amazing when you think about it: Hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans are virtually ignored -- because their unemployment benefits ran out in March instead of May. Congress needs to add another tier of benefits to help the 99ers:

The 99ers took a stand on Wall Street Thursday.

A throng of desperate job-hunters -- who've been out of work so long their unemployment benefits ran out -- staged a protest rally on the steps of Federal Hall.

"Are you going to tell us, President Obama and Congress, that our lives are not worth saving?" asked 99er Connie Kaplan.

She had to move in with her daughter in Astoria, Queens to survive and gets food from food banks.

The grassroots political group, which sprang up after jobless Americans started commiserating online, is demanding that unemployment benefits be extended to include them. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) co-sponsored a recently introduced bill that would create extensions in states with unemployment rates of 7.5% or higher.

"My family is broken up," 99er and former public relations director Anne Strauss, 58, of Smithtown, L.I., told the Daily News.

Her house is for sale and her husband, also unemployed, has moved in with his son in Albany to take a commission-only job.

Strauss applied for a job at a bakery. One question on the application form asked of the job, "Will it interfere with your after-school activities?"

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Despite his turtle-like appearance and seeming Ambien-induced demeanor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell can tell a gripping tale. And yesterday on the Senate floor, he told some tall ones. Republicans, it turns out, supported unemployment benefits for the victims of the Bush recession all along. And just days after he joined the Republican Tax Cut Fairies by laughably claiming "There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue," Mitch McConnell blamed Democrats for the flood of red ink that windfall for the wealthy actually produced

Ignoring the claims of his GOP colleagues including Jon Kyl and Judd Gregg (not to mention Rand Paul and Sharron Angle) that jobless benefits are a "disincentive for them to seek new work" which leads those without work "to stay on unemployment" or just "sit there," McConnell insisted:

"Everyone agrees we should help people struggling to get back on their feet and keep food on the table….Republicans support extending benefits to the unemployed…There's no debate in the Senate about whether to pass a bill. Everyone agrees that we should."

Then, in a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, Senator McConnell blamed President Obama for the mushrooming national debt George W. Bush and his Republican enablers in Congress helped produce:

"If Republicans have done anything wrong in this debate, it was to underestimate how committed Democrats are to spending money we don't have…The President likes to point out that Congress has added to the debt in years past. What he doesn't mention is that we weren’t in the middle of debt crisis then. We weren’t be lectured by the French about the need to cut back on our spending. People weren't rioting in Greece. And we didn't have a President who came into office with a list of legislative priorities that would double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten."

That the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under George W. Bush long ago gave lie to the myth of Republican fiscal discipline. As it turns out, of course, the Bush tax cuts didn't come anywhere close to paying for themselves. And making them permanent is the very worst thing the so-called deficit hawks could do to reduce the U.S. debt.

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