The idea of a large subculture of nonworking religious scholars, supported by state welfare, appears to be relatively novel and limited —

Two factors have contributed to the increasing impoverishment of the ḥaredim in Israel: the mushrooming of the nonworking yeshivah population, which embraced some 80,000 men in the early 2000s, about half of them married, and the drastic cutback in welfare spending by the Israeli government in the face of the deep recession brought on by the second intifada and global factors. The system of army deferment and state support for "professional yeshivah scholars" has a long history in Israel. Originally the number of such scholars qualifying for support in the new state was just 400, earmarked to revive the lost yeshivah world of Europe. In 1968 their number was doubled. In 1977, as part of Menahem Begin's coalition agreement with the religious political parties, the quota was abolished and virtually all ḥaredi men who wished to do so could engage in protracted full-time yeshivah study. The inducements to remain in the yeshivah were great: a government stipend and perpetual draft deferment. In the United States, where such inducements did not exist, a different kind of yeshivah world had evolved. Ḥasidim, who lacked a strong scholarly tradition, would leave the yeshivah at around the age of 21 and enter the labor market, usually in low-paying, unskilled jobs, which indeed caused many with their large families to subsist beneath the poverty line. However, the "Lithuanian" ḥaredim, while prolonging their studies in a flourishing yeshivah world, though rarely beyond the age of 30, often combined vocational and even academic studies in suitable frameworks, like the *Touro college system , with yeshivah study, and consequently were able to get well-paid jobs in high-tech industries and other professions.

— Encyclopædia Judaica