Table of Contents/Entitlement Report/Introduction/Foreward/I/II/III/IV/V/VI
Throughout these charts (except in Part VI), entitlements are equal to OMB's
"Outlays for Payments for Individuals," plus farm price supports (as defined
by the CBO) and estimated military health benefits for other than active-duty
personnel (as tabulated by BEA). Prior to 1962, CBO-defined farm-price supports
are estimated. Other budget functions follow OMB. "All other" spending category
subtracts undistributed offsetting receipts.
Source: FY 1995 Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables
(OMB; 1994); The Economic and Budget Outlook: FY 1995-1999 (CBO; January
1994); and National Income and Product Accounts (BEA).
See chart 1-1 for sources and definition of entitlements. "All other" subtracts undistributed offsetting receipts.
See chart 1-1 for sources and definition of entitlements.
See chart 1-1 for sources and definition of entitlements. Inflation is calculated with the fiscal year GDP deflator.
See chart 1-1 for sources and definition of entitlements. "Social Security" includes both Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI). "Federal pensions" consist mainly of civil service retirement, military retirement, and Railroad Retirement; "health benefits" mainly of Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' health care; "cash welfare" mainly of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI); "food and housing benefits" mainly of Food Stamps, school lunches, and housing and rental subsidies. "Other nonretirement cash" includes miscellaneous entitlement benefits that range from farm price supports and veterans' cash benefits to student loans.
See charts 1-1 and 1-5 for sources and definitions.
See chart 1-1 for sources and definition of entitlements.
Means-tested benefits are those for which recipients must demonstrate some degree of financial need. They include AFDC, SSI, Food Stamps, and Medicaid. Non-means-tested entitlements do not consider financial need in determining eligibility; instead, eligibility is based on categorical requirements, such as age, disability, or prior employment.
Non means- tested benefits include Social Security, Medicare, civil service and military veterans health care and student loans) sometimes consider financial need in determining eligibility, but according to rules that do not apply to all benefits granted.
These "middle-class" entitlements are mostly the same programs that enjoy automatic benefit-level increases.
CPI-indexed benefits are cash benefits that automatically rise each year with the Consumer Price Index. Health-benefit programs--though they often limit fees chargeable by doctors and hospitals per service rendered--ultimately cover the cost of a volume of services per beneficiary that grows much faster than the CPI. In contrast, most unindexed benefits remain fixed in dollar terms unless Congress explicitly votes to change them.
Of all public benefit dollars, less than one out of six serves to raise Americans out of poverty.
The "poverty gap" is the amount of money that would be required--if received as income--to lift every U.S. household over the official Census-defined "poverty threshold."
Income is after-tax cash income plus certain forms of in-kind income. (See chart 4-4 for discussion of this "total income" concept).
Source: For federal entitlements, see chart 1-1; for state and local benefits, National Income and Product Accounts (BEA). 1990 "poverty gap"is derived from data in Measuring the Effect of Benefits and Taxes on Income and Poverty: 1990, Current Population Reports, Series P-60, no.176-RD (Census; 1991).
Indeed, federal entitlements are as likely to benefit the affluent as the needy.
Benefit distributions by income bracket are based on unpublished CBO analysis of Current Population Survey (Census) and Statistics of Income (IRS) income data. Benefit payments tabulated here (a total of $534 billion) represent the 81 percent of federal entitlement outlays in 1991 that could be allocated by income bracket. They include Social Security (OASDI), Railroad Retirement, civil service and military retirement, veterans' cash benefits, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, workers' compensation, Food Stamps, AFDC, SSI, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Although consistent data on the other 19 percent of federal benefit payments are not available, it is unlikely that inclusion of the remaining entitlement programs (ranging from Medicaid to farm price supports)would significantly alter the overall benefit distribution. Source: Neil Howe, How to Control the Cost of Federal Entitlements: The Argument for Comprehensive "Means-Testing" (National Taxpayers Union Foundation; 1991).
Table of Contents/Entitlement Report/Introduction/Foreward/I/II/III/IV/V/VI