California: Welfare Isn't Just for the Poor

A study from the Public Policy Institute of California has found that welfare recipients in the state are not always a small, isolated underclass -- but a sizable chunk of the populace, not all of whom are poor.

• One in three California families used some kind of welfare for at least a month in 1993-94.
• About 46 percent of families on welfare had incomes nearly twice the poverty level -- with one-quarter having incomes over $41,000.
• Immigrant families on food stamps had a median income of $32,500 -- only 2 percent of that due to welfare.
• Immigrant families on Supplemental Security Income had a median family income of over $40,000 -- one quarter having income of more than $64,000.

Welfare reformers say such figures go a long way toward explaining why people have become so cynical about the system.

Source: Perspective, "Wealthy on Welfare?" Investor's Business Daily, March 7, 1997.