Female Trump supporters, mostly with bleached hair, gaze on the bleach-haired president in a Raleigh, NC rally.
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/AFP

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress love to demonize government handouts, which, in fact, their own supporters depend on and are increasingly financed by taxpayers in blue states.

The federal program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – what we used to call “welfare” – provides cash assistance to fewer than 1 percent of Americans.

But the Trump administration is proposing to lump many social programs under a new agency with the word “welfare” in its title.

A recent White House report on imposing work requirements, for example, put Medicaid, food assistance, and housing aid into a rebranded program called “noncash welfare.”

Defined this broadly, a large chunk of America relies on welfare. Add in disability benefits, unemployment insurance, and medical benefits, such so-called “welfare” amounts to 17 percentof the average American’s income.

Welfare has become especially unpopular in “red” states that vote Republican and support Trump.

But these same states are often the biggest beneficiaries of government assistance.

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