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Welfare Reform, Exemplified By The World’s Most Confusing Chart

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A chart released Tuesday by the House Ways and Means Committee shows how 80 programs created to benefit low-income families cost around $1 trillion a year — a figure spending critics say could be lowered with the right reforms, and entitlement supporters say wrongfully includes things like the Earned Income Tax credit and Head Start programs.

Whatever the case, this chart certainly paints a confusing picture of all the programs the government provides to low-income communities on the tax-payer’s dime:

Source: House Ways and Means Committee Staff, using Congressional Research Service reports and other data.

According to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, in 2013 $744 billion in just federal dollars were spent on welfare programs including aid for food, housing, cash, health care, education, job training and energy.

“That’s approximately $6,500 for every American household. The House Ways and Means Committee seems interested in ‘efforts to modernize and streamline or, at the very least, better coordinate these programs to help more people achieve opportunity and upward mobility,'” American Enterprise Institute said in a statement. “That seems like a good start.”

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