Unlike the UK(?) the US has welfare programs run by the states.
Yes it's different here, Das.
The benefits are the same nationwide and they are quite generous too.
When I became a single dad with only two children I didn't need to take a salary out of my business at all. Still, did mind, but only up to the tax free limit.
Welfare queens, and the occasional welfare King too, are very common here. It's an established sub-culture.
Just to give you a clue, a list of the benefits I was entitled to:
Child benefit x 2
Housing benefit (basicaly all rent paid)
Council Tax Benefit (basicaly all rates paid)
Child Tax Credits
Working Tax Credits
Exemption from dental/optician/medicine fee's
CSA (not a benefit but money extracted from the absentee parent by the state)
It all added up to the equivalent of around a £30k gross salary.
Our most famous benefit king, the one who sadly burned his own children to death in a scam to keep his 'cash cow' in tact was estimated to be pulling the equivalent of a £60-70 gross salary in, btw.
None of that touches our most lauded benefit queen though; Nice House in Pall Mall, fully staffed. Private planes, trains and yachts, all tax payer funded ans about another £10m p.a. worth of miscallaneous perk thrown in.
