The assertions made in the Mother Jones article below are absurd and have been completely debunked in multiple in-depth studies. Mother Jones is merely playing games with statistics with total disregard for accounting standards involving government expenditures (or in other words - they are totally misapplying amounts to red states that are actually sent to blue states - such as 80% of crop subsidies)
Let's eliminate military base spending, farm subsidies, and other non-welfare federal spending from the accounting.
The red states do not really want the military bases that were forced on them. These bases take up large tracts of land that are useful for other economic purposes and require local money spent on policing & other services because they tend to be high crime / low income areas. Let's put a large military base in NYC or Boston - and bulldoze all the existing homes.
The displaced residents from these blue cities can survive on the 80%+ of large farm subsidies that are sent to the owners of corporate farms who reside in blue states (but is seen as red state money for some reason).
Let's properly focus on federal welfare spending--defined here as childhood nutrition programs, food stamp programs, WIC benefits TANF benefits, and other similar benefits.
This article from USA Today
"New Yorkers lead pack in government benefits" compiled data showing which states had the highest per capita expenditures for every type of government-provided benefit and blue states top the list and red states made up most of the bottom 10.
Top 10 - Most dependent on government aid
1 New York
2 West Virginia
3 Rhode Island
4 Maine
5 Pennsylvania
6 Massachusetts
7 Vermont
8 Kentucky
9 Michigan
10 Connecticut
Bottom 10 - Least dependent on government aid
41 South Dakota
42 Nebraska
43 Wyoming
44 Idaho
45 Georgia
46 Texas
47 Nevada
48 Virginia
49 Colorado
50 Utah
