← Research POLICY REPORT · 2024

The Great "Transfer"-mation: How American Communities Became Reliant on Income from Government

Kenan Fikri, Sarah Eckhardt, Ben Glasner

Economic Innovation Group

Abstract

This report tracks the growth of government transfer income (Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, and related programs) as a share of personal income in American communities. Transfers grew from about 8 percent of total U.S. personal income in 1970 to almost 18 percent by 2022, and the share of counties substantially reliant on transfer income quadrupled since 2000 to reach roughly half of all U.S. counties. The report attributes the shift mainly to an aging population, rising healthcare costs, and slow earnings growth elsewhere in the economy.

BibTeX

@techreport{fikri_eckhardt_glasner_2024_transfermation,
  title = {The Great "Transfer"-mation: How American Communities Became Reliant on Income from Government},
  author = {Fikri, Kenan and Eckhardt, Sarah and Glasner, Ben},
  journal = {Economic Innovation Group},
  institution = {Economic Innovation Group},
  year = {2024},
  month = sep,
  url = {https://eig.org/great-transfermation/},
}