The Welfare-Industrial Complex Is Booming

null By Allysia FinleyDec. 31, 2023 11:23 am ETWonder Land: The United States is often described as a 'nation of immigrants,' but with Biden’s open river or another Trump wall, the clock on American pre-eminence could stop, as illegal immigration taints the legal path to citizenship. Images: AFP/Getty Images/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyDrill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs over the past year, and for nearly all gains in blue states such as New York and Illinois.The tens of thousands of migrants pouring into big cities need to be tended to. So do the hundreds of thousands of drug-addled and mentally ill homeless living on the streets. Progressive government doesn’t do anything on the cheap. America’s welfare state has thus become a proverbial Big Dig, and it keeps getting bigger.Copyri