Although welfare is to support those in need it does comes with its own share of stereotypes. Often mothers on welfare are looked at as lazy, promiscuous, and uneducated. Moreover, in the article a mother on welfare says that a lot times the system is abused. People taking advantage of the opportunity and don’t need it. She goes on to criticize women that don’t take care of their children but always collecting
All throughout history welfare services have been available to the general public. While these benefits have changed over time, the basic intentions of the welfare system has stayed the same. The welfare system provides benefits and monetary assistance to those who qualify. Different acts over the past two hundred years have been amended in order to try to help the poor, and while not all have been practical and successful, many programs have indeed done an outstanding job in aiding those in need. But, just like with all good things, there is a negative side. Even with all the reforms to try perfect the welfare system there are still some holes in it. Not only is the welfare system easy to manipulate, according to usgovernmentspending.com, eleven percent of the federal budget is spent on welfare, leaving tax payers livid. (usgovspending.com) It 's obvious there is a need for a welfare system in the United States, but with the abuse the welfare system has endured a major change needs to be seen in order to ensure the welfare system be used as efficiently as possible.
People generally enjoy working and being productive members of society. The positive effects of the Welfare Reform Act is moving to eventually end poverty in America and promote economic growth. According to the 2005 report measuring welfare dependents “Poverty in 2003 remains much lower than in 1996, the year of passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The official poverty rate for 2003 was 12.5 percent, compared to 13.7 percent in 1996.” ( Gil Crouse, Susan Hauan, Julia Isaacs, Kendall Swenson and Lisa Trivits, 2005 ) States that design welfare-to-work policies that emphasized getting recipients into jobs by shifting to “work-first” welfare systems can modify program rules to allow more earned income,
Kelly, Brian P. “An Inane, Money Eating Sham: Drug Tests for Welfare a Huge Failure.” Salon.com. Salon Media Group. 29 Aug 2013. Web. 25 Oct 2013.
These programs may include Welfare, food stamps (SNAP), and government housing projects. According to the authors, the results showed from the analysis of how many families are on food stamps is, in 2011 over 1.5 million households with about 3 million children were surviving on less than $2.00 a day, including a family member in the work force (Edin, Shaefer, 2016). It is amazing that these families are living on so little when on when many people spend more than that before they go to school, or work. For example, grabbing a quick breakfast before work can cost almost $7.00. The authors noted that they researched about a total of 18 families, but only 8 total are featured in the book.
"The U.S. Congress kicked off welfare reform nationwide last October with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, heralding a new era in which welfare recipients are required to look for work as a condition of benefits." http://www.detnews.com/1997/newsx/welfare/rules/rules.htm. Originally, the welfare system was created to help poor men, women, and children who are in need of financial and medical assistance. Over the years, welfare has become a way of life for its recipients and has created a culture of dependency. Currently, the government is in the process of reforming the welfare system. The welfare reform system’s objective was to get people off the welfare system and onto the
To identify the main point, this article displays a headlining quote that plainly states the intended audience. “Are you old enough to remember 1968, when the US was a country of working people, not an example of welfare dependency destroying America? Unemployment was 3.6%. There were almost 200 million Americans back then—and most of them (96%) worked for a living, and paid taxes—and were proud to do so” (Mariotti). Even if you weren’t old enough, the author makes it clear that welfare dependency wasn’t a problem in the past. Mariotti makes the United States sound like a paradise. The unemployment rate was low, Americans were hard workers, and welfare aid was practically non-existent. This was a paradise quite opposite from todays America. The reader can benefit from knowing that “the real unemployment rate is almost 14-15%. We are
Maybe by providing stricter guidelines, such as job search requirements, along with proof of the job search, welfare would not be as attractive and recipients will be more likely to get a job. Newt Gringrich, a Former speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote an essay titled “Renewing America” “The welfare system has sapped the spirit of the poor and made it harder to climb the first rung of the economic ladder.” (usnews.com). Sucha system has placed an unfair burden on the hard workers who are forced to pay for these programs. Gringrich states, “Why should taxpayers be forced to take fiscal responsibility for those who do not take responsibility for themselves? He continues to say “As individuals,we are responsible for our own actions and their consequences.” If people do notcare about their own well being then why should I be forced to care? As Gringrich sees it, “If society is responsible for everything, then no one is personally responsible for anything. With that said, without responsibility, are we truly free? Welfare should be used for the right purposes; to help those who are truly in need get on their feet and become successful. But because of the excessive misuse, welfare has now developed a stigma, and should be reformed to its original notion, and that is for its help and not
In the United States one third of the population receives benefits from the government and although some do need it and use it honestly there is a large majority of welfare users who misuse and abuse it. For example there are people who spend their welfare check on items that are not needed when they go to the grocery store the main use for their check should be to buy healthy and necessary items for their family but instead they like to buy overpriced brand named foods. There are even people who try to use the money given to them to buy alcohol, cigarettes, guns, strip clubs and some even go gamble with it. These kinds of people are the ones who give this program a bad reputation and less chance for those who do actually need it to receive
By requiring people on welfare to work, and assisting them to get low-paying jobs if nothing else, the state and local governments give the people incentive to get better paying jobs and keep them. I read an article once that showed the correlation between government-assisted welfare workers and full-time permanent employment of those same workers later. I firmly believe that people will help and support themselves if given a decent chance. This country is founded on the idea of self-sufficiency. We are taught this in the public schools from the first day. We are trained not to cheat, not to steal answers from another person's paper, and not to depend on others to do our work for us. It seems to be an innate human quality that people want to rely on upon themselves and achieve goals on their own. When people who are down on their luck are given a helping hand, often they will move from
Pretend you are in kindergarten again and you have just won your favorite bag of candy for behaving yourself in class all week, and right when the teacher presents you with your glorious prize a fellow classmate, which had already been to the principals twice that week, comes up and asks for a piece. You do not want to give him a piece because you worked hard for it and he broke the rules so they do not deserve it, but then they go complain to the teacher and she says you have to share with him. Would you be upset if you worked hard to obey the rules to win a bag of candy, and then you find out that you could have gotten a piece anyways? This is exactly how many taxpayers feel about welfare recipients that refuse to take
Welfare is intended for families or individuals that are in need of assistance with no or little income. For those who do not know, Welfare funds come from hard working individuals that are required to pay taxes. Now we wonder, are the tax payers’ hard earned money going to the right deserving recipients? Welfare fraud is on the rise in this country. Many are taking advantage of the system taking away the help that is meant for people that truly needed help to provide for their families or people that need assistance until they can stand on their own feet. Statistics clearly show that “785,000 to 1.2 million families are illegally receiving welfare benefits. At the average rate of $11,500 per year, this means taxpayers are being
The welfare system first came into action during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployed citizens needed federal assistance to escape the reality of severe poverty. The welfare system supplies families with services such as: food stamps, medicaid, and housing among others. The welfare system has played a vital role in the US, in controlling the amount of poverty to a certain level. Sadly, the system has been abused and taken for granted by citizens across the country. The welfare system was previously controlled by the federal government until 1996; the federal government handed over the responsibility to the states in hope of reducing welfare abuse. However, this change has not prevented folks from scamming the system. The
looking for work should not be receiving welfare checks. Critics cite the classic example of
Most of the people believe that many welfare recipients are abusing the system in more ways than one.