Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, here's a map of every county in the US that relies on federal aid for more than 25% of its income:
The Journal's numbers show that over the past 20 years the number of Democratic counties feeding heavily at the federal trough has increased about 80%.
The number of Republican counties has increased more than 800%.
Note that this includes Social Security and Medicare, as well as all other federal aid programs. So part of the divergence is because Republican counties have generally aged more than Democratic ones.
A bunch of them can't help it - there's a giant federal park, base, or forest making up much of their economy.
But while the blue ones seem to embrace that, the red ones will never admit it.
I suspect some of the blue ones in the Midwest might include reservation land.
Looks like Res land to me also.
It might, but the big blue area in northeast Minnesota is St Louis County. It includes Duluth and the Iron Range. It was settled by Finnish socialists kicked out by the Russian government in the 19th century. They have largely retained their left-wing politics, giving us the phenomenon of socialist rednecks.
What is with the different shades of red and blue (mostly redder and bluer in the West and North and paler in the East and South)? Is that reflecting the different size of the counties or the degree of Fed dependence?
All counties are shaded red or blue, the darker colors are the ones getting more Federal money.
I only see blue or red and there are only two colors in the legend.
Is this another dress color thing?
Another question - does this count military bases as Fed dependence? If not, why not?
I assumed it did based on some of the counties which I wouldn't expect a lot of Federal aid, other than due to the base. Which is aid of a different sort.
Well, some families are on food stamps.
https://www.military.com/paycheck-chronicles/2014/02/18/military-and-food-stamps
Yes. Any sort of federal employment counts.
It does not.
"EIG used a government definition of income that includes spending on programs that Americans pay into, such as Medicare and Social Security. Another major government health program—Medicaid—is also counted.
The analysis also includes unemployment insurance, food stamps, the earned income tax credit, veterans benefits, Pell grants, Covid-era payments and other income support. States help pay for some of these programs, such as Medicaid, but the federal government covers roughly 70% of the total cost.
The EIG analysis doesn’t include other ways government spending floods into corners of America, such as through farm subsidies or military bases."
The states that are mostly covered are mostly red, as with murder rates and covid and every other lousy thing you can think of, yet these are the people who think destroying society is the solution.
It seems to be something Democrats could run on.
I’m surprised Kevin fell for this. Of course there are more red than blue counties on this map. The US has ~5x more red counties than blue counties! (~2500 red counties and ~500 blue counties)
This map is similar to the map after the 2020 vote showing vote by county - which also shows way more red than blue. And Trumpers were like, how can Trump lose, this map is all red! Well, duh, urban areas that vote blue are far more dense!
Did you read the bit about rates of increase? Because if you did your comment looks misguided!
Why would they do that? Or that there are more red counties than that ratio?
The point of the graph is the relative areas, not number of counties. Of course that does not take population density into account, but some of the poor blue areas in the West are large but sparsely populated (by native Americans for example).
This is basically just a map of farm subsidies.
No, that's barely a blip on the map.
Highway/military/forest/parks have a greater local impact.
Farm subsidies are not included.
Including SS and Medicare is bogus; these are things people paid for throughout their working lives and to try to shame them as wards of the state now makes little sense. Sure, there might be an imbalance between what they get and what they put in, but the fact is 67 year olds today paid more into SS than was necessary to fund current recipients (since the 1987 deal).
Came to say this exact thing. I get irritated every time Social Security and Medicare are called welfare. They are NOT.
Roughly half of Medicare costs are NOT paid for by Medicare taxes or Medicare premiums. For example, in 2021, funding came "primarily from general revenues (46%), payroll tax revenues (34%), and premiums paid by beneficiaries (15%)." (https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/what-to-know-about-medicare-spending-and-financing/ )
So no, it's not completely a welfare program, but it's also NOT like Social Security, which doesn't get ANY general revenue funds.
You guys saved me from having to write a similar comment. It would be interesting to see a map with SS and Medicare unincluded.
The entire article is interesting. There isn't a way to make up your own map, but several charts along the way show that the "increase in number of counties where the residents of such counties have more than 25% of their "income" from "transfers" is almost entirely social security and medicare. I mean, its completely unsurprising that with an increase in health care costs that a person who "retires" and has "income" of $50K, that more than $10K of the $50K is SS and Medicare.
It is a feature of the article that Medicare payments are included in "income" -- anyway.
Incidentally, the article is not really discussing political affiliation of counties and how it relates to how much SS and Medicare (and medicaid) its discussing the overall Fed budget and how all programs relate in an aging population.
"Sure, there might be an imbalance between what they get and what they put in..."
That's what a government subsidy is! You get more than you put in. Sometimes you put in zero, but the fact that you put in something doesn't change the subsidy. You don't think state colleges are unsubsidized because students pay some tuition, do you?
As for the idea that someone isn't a "ward of the state" when they rely on the state for everything they have is . . . well, how ARE they supporting themselves exactly besides cashing that government check?
Kind of amazed to see I'm living in a gray zone.
Your zone could be coming in at 24%.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
24.5%, but I am certain not a fraction higher.
Public investment is a good thing. Dont be a sucker and fall into the trap of talking about it like its a bad thing because of 'Red vs Blue'.
Dont be a sucker.
The Arrowhead, northeastern Minnesota, is not all that blue these days.
Yes, it is. The 8th Congressional District flipped to Republicans because it now extends a lot farther south, into the Twin Cities exurbs. Biden won St Louis County by 16 points, Lake County by 4 points, and Cook County by 34 points.