SSDI was very stringent in 1950. Today it costs over $140 billion a year and covers vastly more people. Numerous free service and cash transfer programs have been created since 1950, which has caused total spending on social welfare programs to increase dramatically:
Again that’s an oversimplification. States have moved people to SSDI while removing them from their own social programs. You really need to look at total government expenditure per person adjusted for gdp per person to see how things have changed over time.
Social Security and Medicare play different roles today vs 50 years ago, but they are just one slice of a larger picture. That includes an aging population and other demographics issues, but also ever shifting bureaucracy and social norms. We created welfare under the belief that single mothers should raise their kids, now norms have changed.
Remember, the first Social Security recipients never paid into the program. It was created with the belief we should support the elderly, now people need to ‘pay into’ the system. Further SS was created in 1935, meaning once again the USA used to have a more progressive outlook.
State social welfare spending has massively increased since 1950, both in real per capita terms, and as a percentage of GDP, so your narrative of states scaling back social programs is false.
And states do not have the power to "move people to SSDI". Eligibility is determined by the federal government, and the federal government has expanded eligibility over the last 70 years.
All broad-based measures of social welfarism show it has massively increased since 1950. I really don't understand how you can look at the spending statistics and claim social programs in general have been cut.
Despite some instances of welfare reform and scale backs, the bigger picture, of total per capita welfare spending, and welfare spending as a percentage of GDP, shows welfare has been massively expanded:
Pensions require old people, SS inflation adjusted formula has not increased the population got older. You can pretend the Social Security trust fund was not created, but that’s ignoring giant cash flows.
Heathcare has increased dramatically, then again 80 years ago their was simply fewer things to spend heathcare dollars on. You can’t buy cancer drugs that don’t exist. On top of that the US system is designed to enrich heathcare providers, not nessisarily provide good heathcare. The VA runs a heathcare system becase using the public one costs to much.
That stacked bar chart is further designed to hide the recent reduction in one category ‘welfare’ as other categories increased. Which means it does not support your point.
SS is not the entirety of social welfare spending. It's not even the entirety of SS-related spending. There is, as I've just mentioned, SSDI.
Total social welfare spending at all levels of government has increased massively, at a rate that greatly exceeds what can be explained by population aging.
>>Heathcare has increased dramatically, then again 80 years ago their was simply fewer things to spend heathcare dollars on.
That doesn't change the fact that government is forcibly redistributing a greater portion of economic output toward healthcare spending.
>>That stacked bar chart is further designed to hide the recent reduction in one category ‘welfare’ as other categories increased.
Real welfare spending per capita has continued to increase. That graph is spending as a percentage of GDP, and GDP is increasing, so a steady ratio means increasing spending. Moreover, welfare spending is vastly greater now, as a percentage of GDP, than it was in 1950 or even 1970.
It seems like you're ignoring every piece of evidence suggesting a shift toward social democracy with expanding social welfare spending, to maintain a narrative of social welfare programs being cut.
You are making two arguments one social welfare spending is increasing, and two that represents a shift towards social democracy. I agree that total spending is increasing, but I disagree that nessisarily supports your second point. Which I why each program needs to be considered individually not just stacked together.
Deogramics is clearly not the only change, but as it relates to both SS and Medicare as age related programs it is a factor that needs to be considered. SSDI is another story and I agree it’s a huge issue. Again, Medicare dates back to 1965 past your 50 year benchmark. Private insurance faces similar issues with healthcare costs are rising faster than GDP which does not support your second argument. Arguably this is even why it was created in the first pace as costs had been growing even back in the 60’s.
Now looking past the pension portion of SS and Medicare the rest of ‘social welfarek spending gets complicated. We pay farmers above market rates for food and then give that food to the poor. How much of that is a social program and how much of that is a farm subsidy? You can bet it was designed to allow for both interpretations. Further, similar issues show up in a huge range of ‘social’ programs.
Now back to your point, you can support an argument that we have shifted to social democracy. At the same time, when looking at spending that actually aids just the poor you see cuts over the recent past. Picking a timeframe also shapes this issue as picking 25 vs 50 vs 100 years makes a real difference.
Going all the way back to my original point, looking at any single number in the recent past is not enough. You need to define closely how it’s created and what it actually means. Though if you had said 100 years not 50 I would have simply agreed because few government programs existed prior to 1919.
>>You are making two arguments one social welfare spending is increasing, and two that represents a shift towards social democracy. I agree that total spending is increasing, but I disagree that nessisarily supports your second point.
If the increase hadn't massively exceeded what could be explained by aging, I might agree that we need to look more closely at the specifics to see how much of what is categorized under social welfare spending is truly that, and how much of the increase in social welfare spending was simply a consequence of an aging population, but it has, so the only conclusion one can reasonably draw in my opinion is that there has been a shift toward social democracy, in the sense of society providing aid to low income individuals at the taxpayer's expense.
>>Again, Medicare dates back to 1965 past your 50 year benchmark.
Medicare spending has ballooned since the program was created in 1965. The Medicare of today is vastly more generous than the Medicare of 1965. I agree that a lot of that is inefficiencies to benefit special interests, but that goes with the territory when you entrust government officials to spend hundreds of billions of dollars that's not theirs.
Additions to Medicare, like Medicare D, have majorly expanded the value of essential goods/services that low income individuals can enjoy at the taxpayer's expense.
>>We pay farmers above market rates for food and then give that food to the poor.
The cost of paying farmers above market rates, aka farm subsidies, is accounted for separately from food stamp costs. In other words the cost of the former is not being disguised as an expense of the latter.
The benefits received by low income individuals from foodstamps really do cost what the statistics show.
You can of course find individual cases of welfare programs being cut, but with the magnitude of social welfare growth, not just per capita, but as a percentage of GDP, it would be incredible if that was mostly a statistical illusion and misaccounting that didn't reflect a major shift to social democracy, and commensurate increase in assistance received by low income individuals at the taxpayer's expense.
