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/...