In 2023, there were an average of ** million monthly recipients of social security benefits in the United States. This is an increase since 2022, and an increase of nearly *** million in the last ten years.In the United States, Social Security benefits can be paid to eligible retirees, widowers, disabled workers, and their families.

This statistic shows the percentage of the population aged 25 and over living in households that participated in different public assistance programs offered in the United States in 2018. Programs included here are Medicaid, School Lunch and the Food Stamps program. 46 percent of individuals with no high school diploma lived in households that had participated in Medicaid as of 2018.

Graph and download economic data for Income Before Taxes: Public Assistance, Supplemental Security Income, SNAP by Number of Earners: Consumer Units of Two or More People, Two Earners (CXUWELFARELB0706M) from 1984 to 2023 about supplements, assistance, social assistance, public, SNAP, food stamps, tax, food, consumer, income, persons, and USA.

In 2023, **** percent of Black people living in the United States were living below the poverty line, compared to *** percent of white people. That year, the total poverty rate in the U.S. across all races and ethnicities was **** percent. Poverty in the United States Single people in the United States making less than ****** U.S. dollars a year and families of four making less than ****** U.S. dollars a year are considered to be below the poverty line. Women and children are more likely to suffer from poverty, due to women staying home more often than men to take care of children, and women suffering from the gender wage gap. Not only are women and children more likely to be affected, racial minorities are as well due to the discrimination they face. Poverty data Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States had the third highest poverty rate out of all OECD countries in 2019. However, the United States' poverty rate has been fluctuating since 1990, but has been decreasing since 2014. The average median household income in the U.S. has remained somewhat consistent since 1990, but has recently increased since 2014 until a slight decrease in 2020, potentially due to the pandemic. The state that had the highest number of people living below the poverty line in 2020 was California.

The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project was designed to fill the gap in knowledge about employment retention and advancement strategies that might be effective. The goal of ERA was to identify and rigorously test a diverse set of innovative models designed to promote employment stability and wage or earnings progression among current or former welfare recipients or other low-income groups. As part of ERA, over a dozen different program models have been evaluated over the past 10 years using random assignment research designs. These models embodied states' and localities' choices of program goals, target populations, and program features, and the programs were largely paid for through existing funding streams. The programs were thus "real-world" interventions initiated by practitioners and not programs set up and funded solely for research purposes. The diversity of the models presents an opportunity to explore the effectiveness of a variety of strategies implemented for different populations in order to identify what might work. This collection includes seven datasets, four classified as Core/Final Report Sites and three from Harder to Employ Sites. Almost all of the ERA programs targeted current or former recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the cash welfare program that mainly serves single mothers and their children. The programs differed, however, in terms of when services were first provided and to whom. The Harder to Employ Sites files focus on the three ERA models that served harder to employ populations; (1) Tier 2 program in Minnesota: unemployed welfare-to-work participants who were in welfare-to-work services for a year or longer and hadn't been employed in the previous three months were given welfare-to-work services aimed at addressing barriers to employment which took into account their employment limitations. The Tier 2 program focused on assessing barriers to employment and addressing those barriers through referrals to appropriate services and close monitoring and follow-up. (2) New York City PRIDE: welfare recipients who were deemed "employable with limitations" were required to take part in welfare-to-work activities -- which emphasized unpaid work experience, education, and job placement assistance -- however, the program took into account their employment limitations when placing them in activities. The PRIDE program began with an in-depth assessment of participants' work and education history and their medical conditions. (3) New York City Substance Abuse Case Management (SACM): public assistance applicants and recipients who screened positive for signs of substance abuse were given a mandatory appointment to assess the level of substance abuse treatment needed. Depending on the outcome of the assessment, clients were referred to treatment, employment services, or a combination of both. Noncompliance at any stage resulted in sanctions and loss of public assistance benefits. Information was collected on respondents' employment status, job training, pay rate and benefits, occupation sector, health care, childcare, transportation, and a variety of job related topics. Demographic variables included household income, housing arrangements, number of people living in household, and respondent health status.

In July 2024, 3.16 billion U.S. dollars were paid out in unemployment benefits in the United States. This is an increase from June 2024, when 2.62 billion U.S. dollars were paid in unemployment benefits. The large figures seen in 2020 are largely due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Welfare in the U.S. Unemployment benefits first started in 1935 during the Great Depression as a part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Social Security Act of 1935 ensured that Americans would not fall deeper into poverty. The United States was the only developed nation in the world at the time that did not offer any welfare benefits. This program created unemployment benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and maternal and child welfare. The only major welfare program that the United States currently lacks is a paid maternity leave policy. Currently, the United States only offers 12 unpaid weeks of leave, under certain circumstances. However, the number of people without health insurance in the United States has greatly decreased since 2010. Unemployment benefits Current unemployment benefits in the United States vary from state to state due to unemployment being funded by both the state and the federal government. The average duration of people collecting unemployment benefits in the United States has fluctuated since January 2020, from as little as 4.55 weeks to as many as 50.32 weeks. The unemployment rate varies by ethnicity, gender, and education levels. For example, those aged 16 to 24 have faced the highest unemployment rates since 1990 during the pandemic. In February 2023, the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV metropolitan area had the highest unemployment rate in the United States.

United States US: Survey Mean Consumption or Income per Capita: Bottom 40% of Population: Annualized Average Growth Rate data was reported at 1.310 % in 2016. United States US: Survey Mean Consumption or Income per Capita: Bottom 40% of Population: Annualized Average Growth Rate data is updated yearly, averaging 1.310 % from Dec 2016 (Median) to 2016, with 1 observations. United States US: Survey Mean Consumption or Income per Capita: Bottom 40% of Population: Annualized Average Growth Rate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Poverty. The growth rate in the welfare aggregate of the bottom 40% is computed as the annualized average growth rate in per capita real consumption or income of the bottom 40% of the population in the income distribution in a country from household surveys over a roughly 5-year period. Mean per capita real consumption or income is measured at 2011 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) using the PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet). For some countries means are not reported due to grouped and/or confidential data. The annualized growth rate is computed as (Mean in final year/Mean in initial year)^(1/(Final year - Initial year)) - 1. The reference year is the year in which the underlying household survey data was collected. In cases for which the data collection period bridged two calendar years, the first year in which data were collected is reported. The initial year refers to the nearest survey collected 5 years before the most recent survey available, only surveys collected between 3 and 7 years before the most recent survey are considered. The final year refers to the most recent survey available between 2011 and 2015. Growth rates for Iraq are based on survey means of 2005 PPP$. The coverage and quality of the 2011 PPP price data for Iraq and most other North African and Middle Eastern countries were hindered by the exceptional period of instability they faced at the time of the 2011 exercise of the International Comparison Program. See PovcalNet for detailed explanations.; ; World Bank, Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP) circa 2010-2015 (http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database-of-shared-prosperity).; ; The comparability of welfare aggregates (consumption or income) for the chosen years T0 and T1 is assessed for every country. If comparability across the two surveys is a major concern for a country, the selection criteria are re-applied to select the next best survey year(s). Annualized growth rates are calculated between the survey years, using a compound growth formula. The survey years defining the period for which growth rates are calculated and the type of welfare aggregate used to calculate the growth rates are noted in the footnotes.

This data collection contains information gathered in the Survey of Income and Education (SIE) conducted in April-July 1976 by the Census Bureau for the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Although national estimates of the number of children in poverty were available each year from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), those estimates were not statistically reliable on a state-by-state basis. In enacting the Educational Amendments of 1974, Congress mandated that HEW conduct a survey to obtain reliable state-by-state data on the numbers of school-age children in local areas with family incomes below the federal poverty level. This was the statistic that determined the amount of grant a local educational agency was entitled to under Title 1, Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. (Such funds were distributed by HEW's Office of Education.) The SIE was the survey created to fulfill that mandate. Its questions include those used in the Current Population Survey regarding current employment, past work experience, and income. Additional questions covering school enrollment, disability, health insurance, bilingualism, food stamp recipiency, assets, and housing costs enabled the study of the poverty concept and of program effectiveness in reaching target groups. Basic household information also was recorded, including tenure of unit (a determination of whether the occupants of the living quarters owned, rented, or occupied the unit without rent), type of unit, household language, and for each member of the household: age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital history, and education.

The statistic shows the percentage of U.S. population receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called Food Stamps) in 2011, by state. About 20 percent of the population in Oregon is receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Work and situation in life of the American population.

Topics: Current employment; time worked each week; hourly wage; frequency of unemployment; attitude to women working, government responsibility for older people and amount of unemployment benefit; possibility of individual planning for the future; expectations of educational opportunities of the children; occupational mobility; achievement motivation; education difference between the spouses; family size; attitudes to the extended family; regional mobility; savings account; assessment of condition of health; party preference.

Demography: party preference; age (classified); race; marital status; religious denomination; religiousness; school education; occupation; professional position; employment; head of household; economic area; housing situation; party inclination; party identification; city size; membership.

Graph and download economic data for Government current expenditures: Income security: Welfare and social services (G160371A027NBEA) from 1959 to 2023 about social assistance, expenditures, government, services, income, GDP, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Income Before Taxes: Public Assistance, Supplemental Security Income, SNAP by Race: White and All Other Races, Not Including Black or African American (CXUWELFARELB0903M) from 2003 to 2023 about supplements, assistance, social assistance, public, SNAP, food stamps, tax, white, food, income, and USA.

THE POLL

As part of Cards Against Humanity Saves America, this poll is funded for one year of monthly public opinion polls. Cards Against Humanity is asking the American people about their social and political views, what they think of the president, and their pee-pee habits.

To conduct their polls in a scientifically rigorous manner, they partnered with Survey Sampling International — a professional research firm — to contact a nationally representative sample of the American public. For the first three polls, they interrupted people’s dinners on both their cell phones and landlines, and a total of about 3,000 adults didn’t hang up immediately. They examined the data for statistically significant correlations which can be found here: [https://thepulseofthenation.com/][1]

Content

• Polls are released each month (they are still polling so this will be updated each month)
  
• Row one is the header and contains the questions
  
• Each row is one respondent's answers
  

Questions in the Sep 2017 poll:

• Income
• Gender
• Age
• Age Range
• Political Affiliation
• Do you approve or disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president?
• What is your highest level of education?
• What is your race?
• What is your marital status?
• What would you say is the likelihood that your current job will be entirely performed by robots or computers within the next decade?
• Do you believe that climate change is real and caused by people, real but not caused by people, or not real at all?"
• How many Transformers movies have you seen?
• Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: scientists are generally honest and are serving the public good.
• Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: vaccines are safe and protect children from disease.
• "How many books, if any have you read in the past year?"
• Do you believe in ghosts?
• What percentage of the federal budget would you estimate is spent on scientific research?
• "Is federal funding of scientific research too high too low or about right?"
• True or false: the earth is always farther away from the sun in the winter than in the summer.
• "If you had to choose: would you rather be smart and sad or dumb and happy?"
• Do you think it is acceptable or unacceptable to urinate in the shower?

Questions from Oct 2017 poll

• Income
• Gender
• Age
• Age Range
• Political Affiliation
• Do you approve or disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president?
• What is your highest level of education?
• What is your race?
• From what you have heard or seen do you mostly agree or mostly disagree with the beliefs of White Nationalists?
• If you had to guess what percentage of Republicans would say that they mostly agree with the beliefs of White Nationalists?
• Would you say that you love America?
• If you had to guess, what percentage of Democrats would say that they love America?
• Do you think that government policies should help those who are poor and struggling in America?
• If you had to guess, what percentage of Republicans would say yes to that question?
• Do you think that most white people in America are racist?
• If you had to guess, what percentage of Democrats would say yes to that question?
• Have you lost any friendships or other relationships as a result of the 2016 presidential election?
• Do you think it is likely or unlikely that there will be a Civil War in the United States within the next decade?
• Have you ever gone hunting?
• Have you ever eaten a kale salad?
• If Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ran for president as a candidate for your political party, would you vote for him?
• Who would you prefer as president of the United States, Darth Vader or Donald Trump?

Questions from Nov 2017 poll

• Income
• Gender
• Age
• Age Range
• In politics today, do you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican or Independent?
• Would you say you are liberal, conservative, or moderate?
• What is your highest level of education? (High school or less, Some college, College degree, Graduate degree)
• What is your race? (white, black, latino, asian, other)
• Do you live in a city, suburb, or small town?
• Do you approve, disapprove, or neither approve nor disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president?
• Do you think federal funding for welfare programs in America should be increased, decreased, or kept the same?
• Do you think poor black people are more likely to benefit from welfare programs than poor white people?
• Do you think poor people in cities are more likely to benefit from welfare programs than poor people in small towns?
• If you had to choose, would you rather live in a more equal society or a more unequal society?

Acknowledgements

These polls are from Cards Against Humanity Saves America and the raw data can be found here: [https://thepulse...

This poll is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions on Bill Clinton and his handling of his job as president, foreign policy, welfare, and the economy. They were also asked to identify the most important thing Republicans in Congress should concentrate on and the United States' most important economic partner and diplomatic partner in the next century. Specific questions on welfare included whether the respondent was willing to pay more in taxes to provide job training and public service for people on welfare, what is to blame when people are poor, whether there were jobs available for welfare recipients, whether these jobs paid enough to support a family, and whether the government should create work programs for people on welfare. Respondents were asked to describe the relations between Japan and the United States today and to comment on whether overall relations would get better or worse in the next few years. Specific questions on Japan included whether the respondent believed that most Japanese respect Americans, whether Japan would be an ally that the United States could depend on, whether Japanese companies were competing unfairly with American companies, and which country--Japan or the United States--was better able to develop new technology and make more technologically-advanced consumer products. Other topics included respondents' opinions on the federal budget, prayer in school, and whether Japan or Germany should be admitted into the United Nations Security Council. Background information on respondents includes voter registration status, household composition, vote choice in the 1992 presidential election, political party, political orientation, education, age, sex, race, religious preference, and family income.

This dataset summarizes the number of dependent children (less than 18 years old) removed from households due to parental drug abuse. The data indicates if the dependent children were placed in kinship care or not. The total number of children in this data set are provided by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), which publishes 5 year estimates of the population. The most recent year of entries in this data set may be available before the corresponding ACS population estimates for that year are published. In that case, the data set uses values from the most recently published ACS estimates and notes the year from which those estimates are pulled. These values are updated once the Census Bureau releases the most recent estimates.” *Kinship care refers to the care of children by relatives or, in some jurisdictions, close family friends (often referred to as fictive kin). Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it maintains the children's connections with their families. *The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) definition of parental drug abuse is “Principal caretaker’s compulsive use of drugs that is not of a temporary nature.”

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides federal money to States and Territories to provide assistance to low-income families receiving or in transition from temporary public assistance, to obtain quality child care so they can work, attend training, or receive education. Within the broad federal parameters, states and territories set the detailed policies. Those details determine whether a particular family will or will not be eligible for subsidies, how much the family will have to pay for the care, how families apply for and retain subsidies, the maximum amounts that child care providers will be reimbursed, and the administrative procedures that providers must follow. Thus, while CCDF is a single program from the perspective of federal law, it is in practice a different program in every state and territory. The CCDF Policies Database project is a comprehensive, up-to-date database of inter-related sources of CCDF policy information that support the needs of a variety of audiences through (1) Analytic Data Files, (2) a Book of Tables, and (3) a project website and search tool. These are made available to researchers, administrators, and policymakers with the goal of addressing important questions concerning the effects of alternative child care subsidy policies and practices on the children and families served, specifically parental employment and self-sufficiency, the availability and quality of care, and children's development. A description of the Data Files, Book of Tables, and Project Website and Search Tool is provided below: 1. Detailed, longitudinal Analytic Data Files of CCDF policy information for all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and United States Territories that capture the policies actually in effect at a point in time, rather than proposals or legislation. They focus on the policies in place at the start of each fiscal year, but also capture changes during that fiscal year. The data are organized into 32 categories with each category of variables separated into its own dataset. The categories span five general areas of policy including: Eligibility Requirements for Families and Children (Datasets 1-5) Family Application, Terms of Authorization, and Redetermination (Datasets 6-13) Family Payments (Datasets 14-18) Policies for Providers, Including Maximum Reimbursement Rates (Datasets 19-27) Overall Administrative and Quality Information Plans (Datasets 28-32) The information in the Data Files is based primarily on the documents that caseworkers use as they work with families and providers (often termed "caseworker manuals"). The caseworker manuals generally provide much more detailed information on eligibility, family payments, and provider-related policies than the documents submitted by states and territories to the federal government. The caseworker manuals also provide ongoing detail for periods in between submission dates. Each dataset contains a series of variables designed to capture the intricacies of the rules covered in the category. The variables include a mix of categorical, numeric, and text variables. Every variable has a corresponding notes field to capture additional details related to that particular variable. In addition, each category has an additional notes field to capture any information regarding the rules that is not already outlined in the category's variables. 2. The Book of Tables is available as ten datasets (Datasets 33-42) and they present key aspects of the differences in CCDF funded programs across all states and territories as of October 1, 2018. The Book of Tables includes variables that are calculated using several variables from the Data Files (Datasets 1-32). The Book of Tables summarizes a subset of the information available in the Data Files, and includes information about eligibility requirements for families; application, redetermination, priority, and waiting list policies; family co-payments; provider policies and reimbursement rates; and select administration and quality development information. In many cases, a variable in the Book of Tables will correspond to a single variable in the Data File. Usually, the variable options used in the Book of Tables will match the variable options in the Data File. In some cases, the wording of the variable options may have been slightly modified for the tables. 3. The Project Website and

In 2023, the around 11.1 percent of the population was living below the national poverty line in the United States. Poverty in the United StatesAs shown in the statistic above, the poverty rate among all people living in the United States has shifted within the last 15 years. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines poverty as follows: “Absolute poverty measures poverty in relation to the amount of money necessary to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. The concept of absolute poverty is not concerned with broader quality of life issues or with the overall level of inequality in society.” The poverty rate in the United States varies widely across different ethnic groups. American Indians and Alaska Natives are the ethnic group with the most people living in poverty in 2022, with about 25 percent of the population earning an income below the poverty line. In comparison to that, only 8.6 percent of the White (non-Hispanic) population and the Asian population were living below the poverty line in 2022. Children are one of the most poverty endangered population groups in the U.S. between 1990 and 2022. Child poverty peaked in 1993 with 22.7 percent of children living in poverty in that year in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the child poverty rate in the United States was increasing every year; however,this rate was down to 15 percent in 2022. The number of people living in poverty in the U.S. varies from state to state. Compared to California, where about 4.44 million people were living in poverty in 2022, the state of Minnesota had about 429,000 people living in poverty.

Abstract (en): The Mothers' Pension Program was a needs-based program, established on a state-by-state basis between 1911 and 1931. The first state to pass the program was Illinois in 1911, and by 1931, all but four states had passed a program to aid mothers with dependent children. Mothers in need of pensions applied for them at the county-level. At present, 80,000 individual case files have been collected. For some states, the full universe of counties that provided MP benefits have been collected if found, while for others only a subset of counties have been found—but if a county has records, the universe of records has been collected by the researchers of the Mothers' Pension Project. For an historical account of the Mothers' Pension program in each state, see the Mothers' Pension Project Website here: http://individual.utoronto.ca/shari_eli/datamp.html. Records have been collected for the following 14 states: Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. In some states, all or nearly all records are no longer extant due to short retention schedules set by states or privacy restrictions. The records contained in this extract pertain to those used in the folllowing article: A. Aizer, S. Eli, J. Ferrie, A. Lleras-Muney (2015). "The Long-Run Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families." American Economic Review, April 2016. Funding insitution(s): National Institutes of Health (R01 HD077227-01A1).

As of March 2023, there were about 7.8 million government employees working in elementary and secondary education in the United States. Additionally, approximately 527,064 people were employed in public welfare services in that year.

This poll, fielded October 23-27, 1996, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Bill Clinton and his handling of the presidency and issues such as foreign policy. Several questions asked how much respondents had been paying attention to the presidential campaign, whether they were likely to vote in the election for president, which candidate they would vote for if the presidential and United States House of Representatives elections were being held that day, whether they had favorable opinions of the candidates and trusted them, and who they expected to win. Respondents were asked to rate the condition of the national economy, whether they thought trade with other countries, such as Mexico and Canada, was good for the United States economy, whether they approved of the way Bill Clinton was handling relations with Cuba, Mexico, and Canada, and the importance of these countries to the United States' interests. Several questions asked for respondents' opinions on welfare, including whether most people on welfare were immigrants or belonged to a specific ethnic group, whether respondents approved of a recent law that changed the welfare system, and whether eligibility for welfare should be limited. A series of questions asked respondents whether trade restrictions were necessary, whether they favored the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), whether it should be expanded to other Latin American countries, and how many foreign products respondents had purchased in the past few years. Respondents were asked for their opinions on immigration to the United States, including the effects of immigration on society, whether immigrants should be eligible for entitlements programs and other benefits, and the country of origin of current legal and illegal immigrants. Information was also collected on whether respondents considered themselves part of the conservative Christian movement, and Hispanic respondents were asked about their country of birth and that of their ancestors. Additional topics included abortion, affirmative action, race and gender discrimination in job hiring practices, the trade embargo against Cuba, and whether the government should be more involved in people's lives and do more to solve national problems. Demographic variables include sex, race, age, household income, education level, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter participation history and registration status, employment status, military service, whether respondents had any children under the age of 18, household union membership, length of time living at current residence, and type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural).