American dependence on government assistance has skyrocketed in recent years, especially in critical 2024 battleground states. According to new data from the Economic Innovation Group, government assistance is now crucial for residents in 70 percent of counties in Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina. In Pennsylvania, 60 percent of counties are reliant on government spending programs.
Reliance on government aid has increased exponentially over the past two decades, with 53 percent of counties nationwide now drawing a bulk of their income from government spending. Just 10 percent of counties were reliant on government spending in the year 2000.
Social safety net programs like Social Security, SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid account for most of the assistance, with the increased reliance driven—in part—by the aging U.S. population. As more members of the Baby Boomer generation retire from the workforce, these programs will continue to see their budgets balloon.
Additionally, the concentration of high-salaried workers in major U.S. cities is compounding the problem. Almost all of the counties reliant on government aid are rural or recently de-industrialized through outsourcing. This has resulted in American wealth becoming concentrated in just a few major cities.
Runaway healthcare costs are also a contributing factor. According to the Economic Innovation Group report, medical costs “have risen nearly twice as quickly as overall inflation over the past several decades.”
The overreliance on government assistance programs among critical election demographics in battleground states could make tackling the country’s ballooning deficit a politically fraught decision for either major U.S. political party. “Significantly raising taxes and dramatically cutting… programs could choke off the very economic activity that finances [them] and immiserate the lives of people who depend on them,” the report notes.
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