Maybe this is from where it came

From Washington Post ...

Misleading chart on welfare spending

Here is a pretty coherent explanation.

Whether Nicely put his own ignorant spin on it, or some "national news" did it, is a mystery.

From the WP article:

while the chart compares what Sessions terms welfare spending [($60,000/year)] to median incomev[($50,000/year)] , the Census Bureau does not include health benefits (such as employer-provided health care) in that calculation, even though such benefits account for half of the welfare side of the ledger. (See Page 29.) So, he’s really comparing apples and oranges.

Sessions adds up many means-tested programs, which are aimed at people with low incomes, but then divides the figure by the number of people under the poverty level even though millions of people above the poverty level receive these benefits. —

It's sad how much time is spent correcting this idiotic information.

TN Senate Democrats tweeted a rebuttal right after Niceley said it:

(link...)

TN Senate Democrats ‏@TNSenateDems 21h
Fact-checking Sen. Nicely: families on welfare do not make $60k a year: (link...)

"Just keep that as you're drivin' home. The average welfare family making $61,000 a year. That's unbelievable."

Yeah, I think it sounds unbelievable, too. So if everybody can agree that it's unbelievable, why does this clown so obviously believe it?

This Dec 2012 press stunt by the staff of Senator Jeff Sessions is just sad.
Read the chart at the end of the CRS memo and look at the smorgasbord of federal programs Sessions' staffers requested be included (along with state spending on God knows what) to get to their total.

(link...)

I mean seriously, they wanna include the entire budgets of The Indian Health Service, Pell Grants, Adoption Assistance, Head Start, grants for Senior Centers, and even Water and Waste Water Grants for Rural Communities??!?! WTF!?!?!

I'll bet he got it from Faux News. They're know for being fair and balanced. But seriously, it was a WTF moment when a Tennessee State Senator says (and perhaps believes) that a welfare family is better off than the average working person in Tennessee. And he discounted how much the loss of 30% in benefits would mean. It's disgusting, dismissive, demeaning, and just plain mean.

The actual figure is hard to come up with. But consider the following assistance amounts in Tennessee:

$390/mo SNAP (food stamps, $130/mo * family of 3)
$185/mo TANF (welfare, believe this is the max)
$450/mo HUD (Section 8 voucher, estimate)

Total: $1025/mo.

Annually: $12,300 direct assistance

Plus TennCare, per-capita expenditure approx. $3500, family of 3 = $10,500

Total: $22,800

When one wants to talk about being poor I can join that discussion from experience. I was born in a tool shed with a dirt floor in a junk yard in Knoxville in 1943 and went down hill from there.

I was raised on state welfare and we never had as much as $100 a month income for seven people in the family. The federal government gave commodities once a month of yellow corn meal, rice, powered milk, and cheese. There were no medical care, housing allowances, free lunches at school or any other type of assistance.

When my oldest brother graduated high school, the state discontinued the state welfare check. They said there was a "bread winner" in the household now and he could provide for the family. He moved and left a family of six with no income. I had to drop out of school and get a job for minimum wages with the only hope of ever getting a raise was when the Democrats in Congress could out vote the Republicans. An unskilled worker has no bargaining power with an employer to demand a wage increase. He is lucky to have a job.

I know things have changed for the disadvantage over the past fifty years, but it still not a bed of roses to be born poor. One is a slave to his economic conditions and it is difficult to break the bonds of poverty for a family. All men are not equal with the same opportunities. There are no shining cities on the hill for those living in poverty.

Communities benefit from the economic impact of food stamp redemption in local stores. Every dollar of new food stamp benefits generates a total of $1.84 in community spending.

SNAP

I can't take anyone seriously who thinks that average really means median.