This is a troubling trend: Our friend Dan Mitchell cites a new Congressional Budget Office study which finds that poor people now get about three-fourths of their “income” from government handouts.

Back in 1979, the poor actually earned about two-thirds of their income from jobs.

The series ends in 2021, the year the Democrats made the child credit larger and fully refundable as alleged COVID relief, so the tax subsidy (the green) has probably come down some since then. (But they would love to bring that policy back.)

What this overall trend tells us is that work requirements for able/bodied Americans aren’t being enforced. Federal programs have for millions of Americans become a substitute for work, not an income supplement.