America’s great “transfer-mation”

According to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group the amount of reliance on government transfers as a percentage of personal income has grown dramatically in recent years (see maps below). Back in 1970 New Mexicans were MUCH less reliant on federal transfer payments (although more dependent than many other states).

As rates of dependency went up across the nation New Mexico followed the trend toward ever greater dependency.

Why is increased dependency on government a bad thing? For starters, our nation is deeply in debt (more than $36 trillion) and the primary causes are “entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare.

Also, it seems that there are some strong correlations between increased government dependency and declines in happiness. It also seems that when government gives resources to one group at the expense of other groups that there will be inter-group hard feelings and jealousy.

Can America reverse course? It is hard to say. While there are significant differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neither one seems interested in addressing entitlements or even reigning in government spending dramatically.

Check out the following chart showing rise of government transfers below: