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A comment on Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?. Parent comment

Re:Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups? by adventured on Friday September 29, 2017 @11:29PM (#15371057)
Per The Washington Post at least 10 states come in above the $35,000 line per year in terms of welfare benefits packages (those include eg Massachusetts, Hawaii, Connecticut, NY, etc). The national median is near $28,800, again per the Washington Post (Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina are at that level).

CATO's numbers also match the Post's. They did a 2013 follow-up study to a prior 1995 study they did of work vs welfare trade-offs on a state by state basis. There is probably no more comprehensive source than their study, that I'm aware of.

"this study seeks to determine the approximate level of benefits that a typical welfare family, consisting of a single mother with two children, might receive"

[34 states come in above $25,000]

https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/the_wo...

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Re:Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups? by macNchz on Saturday September 30, 2017 @12:23AM (#15371227)
These Cato ‘welfare package’ papers have been circulating for a long time and are misleading. Their calculations wind up being for a maximum amount of benefits someone could receive if their life circumstances happened to fit a multitude of criteria. In reality someone falling on hard times would only qualify for a small fraction of those amounts.

Here are two articles that dig into how the Cato numbers are technically possible but not useful for having a real dialogue about the benefits people wind up receiving in real life:

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2015/feb/0...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/...

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