The book by Yves Guyot titled “Socialistic Fallacies” (1910) has a chapter (pp. 142-146) in which he cites 19th century statistics for France and England. The percentage of the total population either indigent or receiving medical assistance was about 2.5-6 percent.
Suppose 6% of Americans are really poor, as was the case in France, England and pre-welfare state America, and that’s a generous estimate. That’s about 20 million people. How many people in America actually receive support through government taxation and doles? 40 million people were on food stamps in 2018. 74 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid.
A country can increase the number of its paupers by paying for more of them. American governments have paid for an increase in pauperism by a factor of 2x to 4x, from these two programs alone.
3:01 pm on December 28, 2019
