The Welfare-Industrial Complex Is Booming
What’s driving American job growth? In progressive states, it’s government, social assistance and healthcare.
By Allysia Finley
Dec. 31, 2023 11:23 am ETDrill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs over the past year, and for nearly all gains in blue states such as New York and Illinois. . . .
New York City is spending $394 a day—or $143,810 a year—to house and feed each migrant, many in formerly posh hotels. . . .
Public-choice theory assumes people are guided by their self-interest. Progressive government and the groups that feed on it have a vested interest in not solving pressing social problems. Treating mental illness and drug addiction, and getting the homeless into productive jobs, would mean fewer jobs for the welfare-industrial complex.
It’s amusing, then, to hear Democratic leaders like Mr. Adams and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson scapegoat migrants for their cities’ vagrancy and budget deficits. How do they explain Texas? The Lone Star State’s foreign-born population has increased by far more than New York’s over the past few years, yet it has 75% fewer homeless people than the Empire State.
The article goes on to state:
"More spending on Medicaid, migrants and the homeless means more jobs for the welfare-industrial complex. Government, social assistance and healthcare made up most, and in some cases more than all, of the net new jobs over the past year in
- California (61%),
- New Jersey (81%),
- Oregon (89%),
- Michigan (113%),
- Illinois (113%) and
- New York (121%).
“The last three states lost jobs in several industries, including manufacturing and tech, but they were more than offset by gains in government, social assistance and healthcare.”
