The Misuse of Welfare in America

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness— these were the unalienable rights our forefathers bestowed upon our new nation when drafting the Declaration of Independence; what a far cry from independent our nation has become. Our forefathers guaranteed life and freedom, and the pursuit of happiness; happiness was not a guarantee, but set forth as a challenge for every individual to define and actively pursue for themselves. Surely, when our forefathers declared independence from an oppressive and overbearing king they did not intend for the American Government to become a maternal state that coddles its citizens. Sadly, we have become just that: a nation of citizens dependent upon our government for everything from putting food in our stomachs, to saving money for our retirement.

The welfare system has been controversial throughout U.S. history. It is constantly under attack and is often the chosen topic of political debates. In 2015, 35.4% of Americans were on welfare (Boyd). Welfare is a government ran program, where the government gives benefits to people who cannot afford to take care of themselves or their family (“Brief”). The benefits that the government gives to the people are money and the necessities they need to live a normal life (“Welfare” 825). The welfare system is an interesting topic and has many layers. Although it is necessary, at the same time it is frustrating for many politicians and U.S. citizens. Numerous people abuse the welfare system everyday. People have found many ways to take

In our society today, we face many problems such as racism, police brutality, and government issues. One problem that I feel is being over looked is the abuse of the welfare system. Coming from a very low income county, I see how the system is abused, and I also see how it helps those in need. People who are capable of working and supporting their family on their own take advantage of the system to get free money. In 2013, the Census Bureau said that there were fewer full time working Americans than were on welfare. It is absolutely astonishing that there are more people on welfare, who supposedly are unable to work, than capable working people. Americans who truly are unable to work or support their family should have every right to be on

The current (US) welfare reform consists of more than cash payment that the poor US citizen could bank on. There is a monthly payment that each poor person received in spite of their ability to work. The main people who received this payment were both mothers and children. Moreover, the payment does not have time limit and those people could not remain on the welfare for the rest of their live.

That is equal to approximately 109,631,000 people. Not all people on Welfare abuse the advantages, most use the program the way that it was intended for, but in 2015, 10.1% of all Welfare payments were improper, meaning the recipient misuses the funds given. The 10.1% is equivalent to $71.5 billion and 11,072,731 people exploiting the system (federalsafetynet.com). To be using the money of people who work hard to earn a living, to be lazy is incomprehensible to me. Living off of other people who are working hard is not living, although the idea of not having to work and instead just be given money to spend on whatever you desire may seem enviable, it is the epitome of the “fun oriented” society. “Did the natural right to pursue happiness become somehow the right to get happiness and did that right inevitably degenerate into a right to have fun- for the simple reason that the impossibility of guaranteeing fun is less obvious than the impossibility of guaranteeing happiness?” (Can we survive the fun explosion?). There is a legitimate fear that the other millions of people not on Welfare will see how the other half living off Welfare will think that it is a viable option because they no longer have to put forth any pursuit for happiness. Their ticket to happiness is handed to them. Then our country will evolve into a crumbling mess because no one will be working to support

America spends an annual amount of 131.9 billion dollars on welfare alone (Department of Commerce). So many facts about welfare are overwhelming, such that over 12,800,000 Americans are on the welfare system. The entire social welfare system is in desperate need of a complete reform. In order for a proper reform to ensue, the people of America must combine efforts with the U.S. government to revitalize the current welfare system. This reform would involve answering two important questions. First, how has today’s welfare system strayed from its original state and secondly, how is the system abused by welfare holders in today’s economy?

Changes within the welfare system as a result of policy shifts and by new thinking, more generally in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have had many methods, but the one that seemed most important, was that welfare recipients were required to do much more to justify their income support payments than before. The foundation of this new idea is that income support programs should allow individuals to maximise their participation in work. Due to the general shift in welfare administration, the number of activity test requirements an individual in Australia must meet in order to receive unemployment benefits, has expanded significantly since the early 1990s. This complex, overly bureaucratic process means that disadvantaged individuals cannot access the income support payments they require.

There remains a remnant of citizens who honestly cannot do without the welfare system and who abide by the regulation of the welfare system, however, the system unintentionally invites scam artists. The ways of abusing the welfare system continuos to grow. Here are just a few of the examples. Citizens are staying single parents in order to receive aid. Parents view having more children as a gateway to receiving more money from the system. Recipients refuse to search for jobs and report employment in order to continue receiving assistance. People seem to easily make false claims, requesting assistance when they do not need it. Although, there is a set time period for receiving funds many citizens become comfortable and lazy during assistance. The whole purpose of the system is to get citizens through rough economical problems and back to a independent lifestyle without government aid. However, the systems seems to encourage complacency in society and provide fraud play in

Thousands of people are signed up to receive welfare in America, this program is designed to aid poor and needy families. However, it has become some people’s way of earning an income. Several argue against and say that welfare is not destroying our country and creating a dependent people who have learned to abuse certain privileges that come with living in this nation.

One of the major welfare abuses is “double-dipping” (working and illegally continuing to receive welfare and/or food stamp benefits). Double-dipping costs the welfare system millions of dollars annually. Cooperation between local welfare and law enforcement agencies can

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

What would happen if the government made changes to the welfare system? There are approximately 110,489,000 of Americans on welfare. Many people benefit from what the system has to offer: food stamps, housing, health insurance, day care, and unemployment. Taxpayers often argue that the individuals who benefit from the system, abuse the system; however, this is not entirely true. Many of the people who receive benefits really and truly need the help. Even though some people believe welfare should be reformed, welfare should not be reformed because 40% of single mothers are poor, some elderly people do not have a support system, and college students can not afford to take extra loans.

In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act which, among other things, provided for the financial, medical, and material needs of the poor (Komisar 125,128). Since then, there have many additions and reforms to the bill, none of which has served to quell the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the welfare system in the United States. The main concerns of the distribution of welfare dollars and resources can be answered by the questions ?Who gets assistance?? and ?How much do they receive??. The U.S. welfare system is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, which attempts to answer these questions through a system of minimum incomes, government-calculated poverty levels, number of children, health problems, and many other criteria. This complicated system leads to one of the critiques of the welfare system?that it is too large and inefficient. President Lyndon Johnson declared a ?War on Poverty? in 1964 designed to alleviate the burden of the poor and established the Food Stamp program the next year (Patterson 139). In 1996, a major welfare reform bill was passed that placed time limits on welfare assistance, required able participants to actively seek employment, and implemented additional services for the needy (Patterson 217).

Welfare has been a safety net for many Americans, when the alternative for them is going without food and shelter. Over the years, the government has provided income for the unemployed, food assistance for the hungry, and health care for the poor. The federal government in the nineteenth century started to provide minimal benefits for the poor. During the twentieth century the United States federal government established a more substantial welfare system to help Americans when they most needed it. In 1996, welfare reform occurred under President Bill Clinton and it significantly changed the structure of welfare. Social Security has gone through significant change from FDR’s signing of the program into law to President George W. Bush’s

Throughout history, there have always been people willing to work for what they want, and those who expect things to be handed to them as if it was a natural-born right. While the welfare system does positively impact some families in need, many people take advantage of it. With this being a well known fact, the government still continues to use ten percent of the federal budget on welfare (“Budget” 1).