Arizona again among Most Dependent States on Federal Government Subsidies (Phoenix: leasing, hotels)

[adriver]

Originally Posted by Potential_Landlord

Fresh in from Phoenix Business Journal: So the next time you see a panhandler at a traffic light just think of him following Arizona's great tradition of mooching of other people's money
From the article:
"This means that taxpayers in other states are subsidizing Arizona social services and education."
"The study also found that “red” states have twice the federal dependency as “blue” states, a trend WalletHub’s experts believe belies the stereotypical red state call for small government and less federal involvement in state affairs."


http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/b...ess+Journal%29

NO, its not. Its not anywhere in the article. What a hate mongering, ignorant thread/post...

Does it make any differentiation between; military instillations, indian reservations, or our large percentage of retired and disabled veteran population??

[AZ Manager]

Originally Posted by azsportpilot

Problem #1 - Over 25% of AZ land is made up of indian reservations, 38% of the nations indian population reside in AZ, these reservations are heavily subsidized by the US gov't

https://www3.epa.gov/region9/air/map...1100040_2g.gif

Problem #2 - there are over 1,000,000 illegal aliens residing in AZ (yes, they qualify for welfare) have worsened the problem

Problem #3 - Phoenix (unlike most large cities) have very low wages (possibly due to the large population of "undocumented workers")

PHX has a lot of hard working full time employees that make less than $25,000 a year making them eligible for subsidies

You forgot how much SSI and Medicare are funneled into the state which inflates the numbers in this junk study, also those military bases we have.

Originally Posted by Potential_Landlord

The article was about our state budget IMO, which is subsidized by ~20% from the federal government. Any subsidies to the tribes are direct federal subsidies bypassing our budget. So they would come extra.
What we're talking about is how states like California and New York subsidize our roads, schools, parks etc.

It is not about straight budget contributions, they even admitted to it in their C-Span interview, they are focusing on how much tax dollars are spent in a state vs how much is received from the state. They even went and tried to make conclusions based on a per capita basis which just doesn't work. You don't pay federal taxes on SS benefits and states with high minority populations also have higher numbers of minors who don't pay taxes but both groups are still part of the per capita equation. Including military bases, SSI, and Medicare make for bad science and bad science does not make for good conclusions. There is no indication that things like reservations and federal land are excluded from the federal spending in the calculations either. If they excluded SS/medicare taxes as income to the federal government then it skews the numbers further because those higher income states that rank lower have lower SS/medicare taxes as a percentage of their income due to the limits.

If they wanted to do an honest comparison they should have done it based off average per tax payer in a state (not per capita) against federal spending that excludes benefit programs (SS/medicare/tribal payments) and federal employees (military/postal workers) as these are a federal expenses not state expenses that the states are seeking federal assistance with. Bad science will always provide bad conclusions.

From this it is hard to come to a logical conclusion that any state is subsidizing anything since every single state on the list takes more than it gives. It is more accurate to say that our roads, schools, etc. are being subsidized by, or more specifically leveraged against, the American youth because they are the ones who are going to have to figure out how to repay $20+ trillion dollars in debt, we will reach that by the end of the year.

[GeneR]

Originally Posted by AZ Manager

... You don't pay federal taxes on SS benefits ....

Just a slight correction: Social Security benefits are federally taxed (see line 20a and 20b, Form 1040).

[509]

Originally Posted by AZ Manager

...............................If they wanted to do an honest comparison they should have done it based off average per tax payer in a state (not per capita) against federal spending that excludes benefit programs (SS/medicare/tribal payments) and federal employees (military/postal workers) as these are a federal expenses not state expenses that the states are seeking federal assistance with. Bad science will always provide bad conclusions...............

I am not sure you can do an honest comparison. The Federal government needs those states willing to host military bases. You could say that the Federal government is "dependent" on those those states.

Those that saw the C-Spam broadcast do you know who did the study? The author of the piece in WalletHub is a journalist with a BA in journalism and minor in sports commerce and culture!! Really??? I am not a great fan of credentials, but you need a bit of a background in economic and social analysis to do a good study like this.

Federal spending by state is important. I lived in California during the 60's and 70's. Part of that economic boom came from Federal spending on military contracts, infrastructure, etc. I even remember the state of New York complaining that it was the reason they were falling behind. Then California decided to get rid of its military bases, stop building new infrastructure, and as a result Federal spending dropped.

I do find it interesting how they define dependency. The numbers from Mississippi and Connecticut are interesting. Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the union. So the Federal government spends about 11,000 per capita in Mississippi and 17,000 in Connecticut!! I think the more interesting question is WHY the Federal government spends that much money per household on a very wealthy state!! Of course, Connecticut is not dependent on Federal dollars...they are rich!!! Mississippi is not.

I spent well over a decade doing social and economic analysis for the Federal government. It is amazing how much really bad social and economic analysis is done for political purposes. I would put this study in that category from what I know about right now.

I have to give credit for WalletHub for being very clever and putting all the professors on the web page, thereby, giving the appearance that they were somehow involved or approve of the studies conclusions.

I really would like to see more on the process used and the analyst that did the study....was it that person with a "sports commerce and culture" degree??

[AZ Manager]

Originally Posted by GeneR

Just a slight correction: Social Security benefits are federally taxed (see line 20a and 20b, Form 1040).

No correction needed you just misunderstood the statement. Retired people collecting social security benefits don't pay federal income taxes on those benefits. Or as I said "you don't pay federal taxes on SS benefits." Hell if SS benefits are your only source of income you don't even have to file federal taxes that year.

[GeneR]

Originally Posted by AZ Manager

... Retired people collecting social security benefits don't pay federal income taxes on those benefits. Or as I said "you don't pay federal taxes on SS benefits." Hell if SS benefits are your only source of income you don't even have to file federal taxes that year.

This is not correct. If, as stated above, SS retirement benefits were not taxable the SS Administration would not be sending out SSA-1099 forms for filing purposes. Again I refer you to 1040 Form instructions for lines 20a and 20b or see FAQ Social Security web site:

https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/3401...urity-benefits

[Miss Liberty]

Originally Posted by Unsettomati

And the "red crowd" has one excuse after another for why most of the states that would go belly-up without federal handouts are red states and why most of the states that dominate the top of the self-sufficiency ratings blue states.

And - no surprise - in every case where a red state desperately needs federal largesse in order to survive, somehow it's not the failing of the red state in question but, as always, the big bad liberal boogeyman!

So predictable.

Of the 20 most dependent states, #s 2 (NM), 12 (ME) and 19 (OR) are blue - the remaining 17 are red.
And the least-dependent list is, as always, dominated by blue states.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-mos...vernment/2700/

Ain't reality a bummer?

And yet blue states have to legalize drugs to keep their states afloat and the people complacent.

[oldtrader]

Originally Posted by KurtAZ

No surprise there...this State has always lacked companies HQ'd in AZ. I think last count was 110ish that actually had HQ here. Our states' largest employer is Walmart...followed by Banner Health...which creates an interesting dichotomy. The largest employer mostly pays minimum wage...Banner is a Healthcare company typically paying well over $20 per hour for employees. Kroger and Albertson's follow with Wells Fargo rounding out the top 5.

Wrong. Walmart does not pay minimum wage to anyone. They pay $9 while in training to do the job, and goes to a minimum of $10 per hour after training completed.

In the retail field, Walmart is one of the better paying chain store, with the high priced chains in most cases paying less than Walmart.


The methodology seems questionable as well...
State Residents’ Dependency – Total Points: 50
Return on Taxes Paid to the Federal Government (~37.50 Points)
Note: This metric was calculated by dividing federal funding in U.S. dollars by IRS collections in U.S. dollars.
Share of Federal Jobs (~12.50 Points)
State Government’s Dependency – Total Points: 50
Federal Funding as a Percentage of State Revenue (~50.00 Points)
Note: This metric was calculated by dividing federal revenues in U.S. dollars by state revenues in U.S. dollars then multiplying the result by 100.

As others have pointed out, Arizona is the home of huge population living on Indian Reservations. Remember those reservations are not controlled by the state or private industries. They are under the control of the Federal Government, who have kept out the jobs other areas are getting. The Bureau Of Indian Affairs apparently likes keeping the reservations impoverished, as a way of keeping one heck of a lot of government jobs, which they would lose if the reservations became self sustaining and they gave up control. Every dollar spent for Fed Jobs on Reservations, every dollar that is spent for the welfare state the Indian Reservations are under in Arizona, are counted as part of the fed payments to Arizona.

It is the same in several western states such as where in Live in Montana mentioned as one of the big taker states. The 4th largest state in the country and has only 1,000,000 residents. But again lots of Indian Reservations. As large as One Indian Reservation larger in area than the smallest state. And 7 large reservations in the state. Another state with a larger than tax received, in relation to the taxes paid. In addition Montana like Arizona has large National Parks and Monuments, which use a lot of those tax dollars, counted paid to the state.

And all those Military Bases and service men and women in Arizona, take a lot more of those federal dollars in Arizona.

It is disgusting to people living in Arizona and some other western states the big city people call them taker states. Meaning they take more federal dollars than they pay in taxes. Yes disgusting, as the Federal Government controls so much, controls the people on the Indian and Military reservations, Huge National Parks, Federally owned forests, etc., where so many of those Federal Dollars are used and spent, and blame the state for being beggars taking those extra Federal Dollars over what they pay in Taxes.

It is not the majority of the population that is using all those extra dollars to make them dependent states. It is The Federal Government that is spending a huge amount of those dollars, on the lands they control in the states, and the people that live on those lands.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by azsportpilot

you are right:.... the other and more pressing factor is 1 million illegal aliens, holding wages down, not paying income tax, and collecting welfare

And who is hiring all these illegal aliens in Arizona? Arizonans.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by Potential_Landlord

So we are unable to sustain ourselves because of federal lands in Arizona??? That sounds like a pretty lame excuse.

Particularly when the former governor wanted to take over the Grand Canyon while she couldn't even keep state parks open.