The source for the claim, said Stenhouse, is a report from the libertarian Cato Institute called "The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off: 2013." It examined the value of various welfare programs by state.
The Rhode Island total comes from starting with the $6,648 a year in cash welfare that a single parent with two children could receive, which is the only unrestricted cash that recipients would see. (It's also 34 percent less than what recipients got in 1995, adjusted for inflation, according to Cato.)
Then you add in:
$6,249 per year in food stamps (now called the SNAP program)
$12,702 in housing subsidies
$11,302 as the cost of buying health care coverage comparable to Medicaid
$275 in heating assistance
$300 a year under the Emergency Food Assistance program (TEFAP)
$
1,156 in food under the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program for pregnant women, new mothers and children up to age 5.
31,984
6.648 welfare checks
38,642
The total -- $38,632 -- is equivalent to what a single parent with two children would get to keep after taxes if the parent earned $43,330 a year, or $20.83 an hour for a 40-hour work week, Cato said.
"Many welfare recipients, even those receiving the highest level of benefits, are doing everything they can to find employment and leave the welfare system," the Cato report concludes. "Still, it is undeniable that for many recipients -- especially long-term dependents -- welfare pays more than the type of entry-level job that a typical welfare recipient can expect to find. As long as this is true, many recipients are likely to choose welfare over work."
But there's a problem: There's nothing typical about this amount because very few poor people are eligible for -- or take advantage of -- all these programs.
The Cato report acknowledges that most people won't be getting close to the $38,632. For example, welfare recipients aren't eligible for WIC benefits unless they have children under age 5. Another example: Many poor people can't get a housing subsidy -- only 1 in 4 Rhode Islanders receiving cash welfare are also receiving housing assistance.
Anticipating such criticism, Cato did another calculation, looking only at the welfare, food stamp and Medicaid programs that, they said, nearly all poor people would be eligible for. Cato found that the value of just those benefits was equivalent to being paid $17,347 a year, or $8.34 an hour.
That's a far cry from $20.83 an hour.
On the other hand, $8.34 an hour is still only 66 cents below the current Rhode Island minimum wage, with no need to punch a time clock, find child care, or arrange for transportation to and from a job.
http://www.politifact.com/rhode-isla...lent-2083-hou/
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