Where And How Does Missouri State Government Receive Most Of Their Money

Updated on March 8, 2017.

Maps showing regional differences among Americans are all the rage these days, such every bit this delineation of the contours of baseball fandom, or this one of the beers we're alleged to favor, or this showing the places in America where none of us lives, or this artistic video/map showing where Americans use different words for common things such every bit soda.

For my money, one of the more interesting maps appearing recently came from the personal-finance website WalletHub. Analysts there ready out to determine how states compare in terms of their reliance on federal funding.

The WalletHub analysts essentially asked how much each land receives back as a return on its federal income-tax investment. They compared the 50 states and the Commune of Columbia on 3 metrics: (1) federal spending per capita compared with every dollar paid in federal income taxes; (2) the percent of a state's annual revenue that comes from federal funding; and (3) the number of federal employees per capita. The third measure received simply half the weight of each of the others in the adding.

What the resulting map shows is that the most "dependent states," every bit measured by the composite score, are Mississippi and New Mexico, each of which gets back about $3 in federal spending for every dollar they send to the federal treasury in taxes. Alabama and Louisiana are shut backside.

If you look simply at the beginning mensurate—how much the federal government spends per person in each state compared with the amount its citizens pay in federal income taxes—other states stand up out, particularly South Carolina: The Palmetto State receives $7.87 back from Washington for every $i its citizens pay in federal tax. This bar chart, fabricated from WalletHub's data, reveals the sharp discrepancies among states on that measure out.

On the other side of this grouping, folks in 14 states, including Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, and Ohio, go back less than $1 for each $1 they spend in taxes.

It'south not only that some states are getting fashion more than in return for their federal tax dollars, but the disproportionate amount of federal aid that some states receive allows them to keep their own taxes artificially low. That'due south the argument WalletHub analysts make in their 2014 report on best and worst states to be a taxpayer.

Office of the explanation for why southern states dominate the "most dependent" category is historical. During the many decades in the 20th century when the South was solidly Democratic, its congressional representatives in both the House and the Senate, enjoying smashing seniority, came to hold leadership positions on powerful committees, which they used to ship federal dollars back to their home states in the form of contracts, projects, and installations.

Another part of the explanation is easier to discern. The reddest states on that map at the top—Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, New Mexico, Maine—have uncommonly loftier poverty rates and thus receive unduly large shares of federal dollars. Through a variety of social programs, the federal authorities disburses hundreds of billions of dollars each year to maintain a "safety net" intended to help the neediest amid u.s.. Consider, for example, the percentage of each state'southward residents who get nutrient stamps through the federal authorities's SNAP program. This chart tells the story.

Another way of getting at the aforementioned signal is to map the percentage of families in 2012 with incomes below the federal poverty level (according to the Census Bureau'due south ACS 5-year estimate). This map, made through Social Explorer, shows the data at the canton level: The darker the shading, the higher the percentage of impoverished residents.

Yous can go hither to run across an interactive version of this map that enables you to scroll your cursor over counties and get pop-up information showing the percentages for any specific canton. Y'all can also modify the map view, showing the data at different levels, ranging from states all the way downwards to individual census block groups. (To encounter the mapped data at sub-county levels, you lot have to zoom manner in to detail areas.)

There are diverse ways of thinking most what WalletHub's "country dependency" map tells the states. One approach is to shine light on the red-states-as-takers paradox: Dominated by Republican voters who profess their distaste for the federal government and its social programs, these are the very states that rank highest on the dependency index. That, for instance, is how Business organization Insider handled the story:

Who really benefits from government spending? If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you lot might think it was those blue states, packed with damn hippie socialist liberals, sipping their lattes and providing costless abortions for bored, horny teenagers. ...

As it turns out, it is crimson states that are overwhelmingly the Welfare Queen States. Yes, that's right. Scarlet States—the ones governed by folks who think government is as well big and spending needs to be cut—are a internet drain on the economic system, taking in more federal spending than they pay out in federal taxes. They talk a adept game, but stick Blue States with the bill.

Fair enough. That'south a catchy perspective. And at that place are few things more fun than exposing hypocrisy.

Alternatively, we could use the "state dependency" map equally an opportunity to reflect on a different paradox—the long-standing  role of the far-away federal government every bit an agent of community. Because of federal programs, people in places similar S Carolina and Mississippi are getting a helping hand non from their neighbors a few blocks away or in the next county over, but from residents of Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, and Nebraska. Whether you like that idea depends, in office, on how yous personally reconcile the tension between ii long-cherished, core American values—our passion for individualism and our regard for community—and whether you lot see "customs" as encompassing the whole country.

That's a far more interesting thing to remember about (though peradventure less viscerally satisfying) than which states are moochers or freeloaders and which are getting fleeced.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/

Posted by: cuomowhinkent.blogspot.com

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