The Geography of Government Benefits

The share of Americans’ income that comes from government benefit programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, more than doubled over the last four decades, rising from 8 percent in 1969 to 18 percent in 2009. This interactive page from the New York Times allows you to see (by county) the amount of various transfer payment income to areas over time.

Transfer payments are non-compensatory government payment to individuals, such as for welfare or social security benefits. It also includes things like veterans benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, disability payments and earned income credits.

To see the interactive page, CLICK HERE

The interactive map lets you point to a county and see what the present per capita payment is as well as look at the historical trends over the last several decades. The source data is the BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis).