45 million Americans with low income rely on at least one of the many welfare programs. Of these government assistance programs, many of them deal with fraud and abuse. “Some cases of government assistance misuse are more blatant than others, but some aid recipients are using sneaky tactics that give other needy Americans a bad reputation” (calonia 1). Clearly, people are abusing the system in order to receive money they do not deserve. This makes it harder for people who need the welfare programs to get the money they need to support a family.
Government assistance programs are abused by people who do not want to work for a living. They lie on paper in order to receive money that they, personally, do not need. This causes the government to have less money to supply to families who actually depend on welfare programs. Although government assistance programs do help many people, many others abuse the system in order to receive more money or any money at all, therefore there should be more security in order to receive benefits.
Government assistance programs began in the United States in the 1930’s during The Great Depression. “When the great depression hit, many families suffered. It is estimated that one-fourth of the labor force was unemployed during the worst part of the depression” (welfareinfo.org). During the 1800’s there were many attempts to change how the government dealt with needy families. Some were trying to get the poor to work instead of giving them money. Before The Great Depression, there were many other methods of trying to help the needy families, but because the need was so high during The Great Depression the government really had to step in. This was the beginning of welfare programs as they’re known as tod...
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...rograms created then. Welfare programs all have good intentions behind them. They were all created for beneficial reasons. Government assistance is created to support the needy people throughout the country. Many families would not be able to survive without these programs. It is believed that people who use these programs are lazy and do not want to work, but this is not always the case.
There are many families in The United States that truly need government assistance programs in order to survive, but there are also people who only use it when they do not deserve to. This gives the families who do need it a bad reputation; because it gives the stereotype that everyone who uses it does not need it. The Government Assistance programs need to have more security in order to receive the benefits so that the people who really need it are the only ones that can get it.
...al treatment, exceptions, to normally strict regulations, could be made in extreme circumstances for needy people. Having one rule, with no exceptions, can only add argument and debate. Welfare is definitely a good program if truly needed, but if misused, can only punish the ones that need it. I guarantee, though, that if you look around, you will find some form of abuse of the government, whether it be through welfare, workman's compensation, or many other types of government aide.
In today’s America, there are many people who would either be disgusted at the very mention of Welfare or be highly grateful for its existence. I believe that in order for welfare to be more effective in America, there must be reform. From the time of its inceptions in 1935, welfare has lent a helping hand to many in crisis (Constitution Rights Foundation). However, at present many programs within the system are being abused and the people who are in real need are being cheated out of assistance. The year after the creation of welfare unemployment was just about twenty percent (Unemployment Statistics). The need for basic resources to survive was unparallel. Today, many people face the same needs as many did during the 30s. Some issues with
It is a commonly known fact that a large percentage of Americans are living on and relying on welfare, which is a government program that provides financial aid to individuals or groups of people who cannot support themselves. Welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. There are several types of assistance offered by the government, which include healthcare, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing assistance. The type of welfare and amounts given depend on the individual, and how many children they have. There are many people who honestly need the government assistance, but there are also many who abuse the privilege.
Welfare programs are an important part of American society. Without any type of American welfare, people will starve, children will not receive the proper education, and people will not receive any medical help simply because they do not have the resources available to them. Each of the three aspects of the American welfare system are unique in their own ways because they are funded differently and the benefits are given to different people. While support for these welfare systems has declined in the more recent years, the support for it when it was created was strong.
Food stamp organizations help a variety of people from the disabled, single mothers, children and to those who cannot find—or are unable to—work. There are many out there who for some reason are unable to obtain necessary food, and without these programs, these people wouldn’t be able to survive in the money hungry world. Though these programs are put in place to ensure that people are being properly fed, there are people out there that think people use it only to abuse it. Single mothers are just one of the groups that gets a lot of harassment and are looked down upon. These individual’s are looked down upon due to the stereotypes and the overwhelming concern of them ruining the system due to a few. According to Poverty and the Homeless they said only 9 percent of single mothers stayed in there programs for more than seven years and less than 10 percent stayed more than eight years, also saying that most of them were young single mothers with children under the age of three (Williams). Single mothers are not the reason that the economy is going under, people just need an escape goat to blame so they don’t see their own ignorance. Mothers shouldn’t be wrongly accused for needing food stamps, because they could need them for a number of reasons. There are mothers out there that have been divorced and the husbands don’t pay child support. An article online talked about how this mother had recently separated from her husband and she was on food stamps. Her children didn’t know because she didn’t want to burden them with any more than they already had. She said, “I sold everything that wasn’t tied down. I eventually found three part-time jobs that would allow me to be with my sons when they got home from school, trying to keep their lives as structured and normal as possible — plus saving me $100+ a week in childcare, which is substantial when you make
Programs that help people who are in poverty are known as Public-Assistance programs that only help citizens whose income doesn’t meet the law standards of living and as well to those who are not covered by social insurance (Katznelson 326). These programs are known as “undeserving” as they are not indexed and organized by the state. The programs include supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) known as food stamps, Temporary assistance to needy families (TANF), and Medicaid. These programs are set to help Americans who are struggling, but unfortunately, these programs have been abused.
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 proposal of privatized accounts.
By making improvements to the Welfare System in America has become a way of life that has entrapped so many single and married households across the country. Statistics show that there were 108,592,000 people who are recipients of one or more means of the government benefit programs. The Census Bureau recorded by surveys over 101, 716,000 people who worked full time year around in 2011 which only allowed one member of the family to work year round. The system is meant to help low income families, however; they don’t want to be not allowed to grow by becoming more independent and have opportunities to rise above poverty. The quest to change the welfare system is to ensure the welfare and the rights of children, their parents and taxpayers are not ignored. Programs have been developed to ensure welfare recipients are employable and retained. These programs are in the forms of training, workshops, and education, as well as other services that will provide support as well as pride and self-sufficiency.
Being raised in a single-parent lower class home, I realize first-hand the need for welfare and government assistance programs. I also realize that the system is very complex and can become a crutch to people who become dependent and complacent. As a liberal American I do believe that the government should provide services to the less fortunate and resources to find work. However, as able-bodied citizens we should not become complacent with collecting benefits and it is the government’s job to identify people who take advantage of the system and strip benefits from people who are not making efforts to support themselves independently. I will identify errors that exist within the welfare system and several policy recommendations to implement a change that will counteract the negative conditions that currently exist.
A single divorcee’ mother of two is working a minimum waged job that doesn’t pay life’s cost of survival. Not only does this mother have to take care of herself, she has children that need shelter, nourishment, and stability. In order for that to be possible, help is needed. Most people, majority is fathers, have too much pride to ask for help because of the image. Being on social welfare promotes the ego dropping image that one cannot provide for themselves or their family. But is image more important than the life itself? Children are dying of hunger or dehydration because their parents cannot afford decent meals or purified water. Children are dying from sickness because their parents cannot afford a home that protects them from the cold. Some of these parents are working forty hours a week or more for minimum wage and still cannot afford the necessities to live healthy. Some parents cannot find a job due to lack of qualification. The government has provided resources for people who are disadvantaged; however, there are still problems that need to be addressed. Social welfare isn’t a discouragement, it is a helping hand. There is no reason why lives should be shortened because of the inability to access governmental assistance. Social welfare benefits America as a whole because it serves as a crutch for the financially handicapped and provides motivation to work harder for a better lifestyle.
From 1990 to the present, government welfare such as income assistance and food stamps have aided the unemployed, the ill, and the broken families of America, but government assistance greatly affects the myth that hard work is the only pathway to success, and welfare provides many negative, as well as positive impacts to society. In the United States, many different welfare systems offer a wide range of benefits including money and food stamps to a variety of people. Plagued with economic issues and a shrinking middle class, the poorest Americans keep getting poorer, and the door seems to be shutting more and more on the opportunity to rise above their impoverished roots. Welfare aims to provide aid to those poor Americans who need an extra boost to keep up and help them in achieving the sought after “American Dream.” According to the US Committee of the Budget: House of Representatives, “There are at least 92 federal programs designed to help lower-income Americans. For instance, there are dozens of education and job-training programs, 17 different food-aid programs, and over 20 housing programs. The federal government spent $799 billion on these programs in fiscal year 2012”. Welfare also greatly affects a large number of the United States’ population, and as Robert Rector states in the article “Spiraling State of Welfare Spending,” “Roughly 100 million people- one-third of the United States population- received at least one means-tested welfare program each month (Feulner). Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides cash assistance for families with children in need. TANF was created after the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which was instituted in 1996 under President Bill Clinton. PRWORA aimed ...
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 scammed out of roughly $9 to $13.5 billion dollars every year” (User, par. 4) that is $13.5 Billion dollars of the tax payers hard earned money that is going to the wrong people that do not deserve it. What are the types of Welfare fraud that are being committed in the United States that our government needs to pay close attention to? To start, hopeful recipients will intentionally give false information about their household income to qualify. Some will sell their food stamps also known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP). Also, illegal and misuse of Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) is one of the problems our Welfare System is facing today. All three are considered illegal and these type of activities need to be stopped immediately. People that are in need should be given the assistance they desperately ask for. The System should re-assure tax payers that their hard earned money is going to the right recipients and is not going into the wrong hands.
The idea of the United States government assisting the poor financially, originated nearly 70 years ago (Modern Welfare Programs). The depression was in full flux and the American people were demanding help from the government. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the first federal poverty assistance act called Aid to Dependent Children Act in 1935 (Background: Time for a new Approach). This laid the foundation of the current government entitlement program now called welfare. World War II brought thousands of jobs to America and slowed the growth of the entitlement program. A vast majority of people were employed either directly by the government or through other war related jobs. After the war the economy held strong for the next ten years (Modern Welfare Programs).
Government welfare was created to help people who were struggling get back on their feet again. People now abuse this privilege that was meant for good. People expect the government to give them food stamps, free health care, and other necessities of life. By doing this, tax dollars of the working class are taking care of people who will not work. To solve this problem, welfare should be temporary not permanent, prove you are looking for a job, have random drug screenings, and work in community service in exchange for welfare. Although government welfare can be a great resource to those in need, there needs to be restrictions and limits put on it so it will not be abused.
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." This is one of Mitt Romneys famous quotes. The scary part about this quote is that he is right. About half of our country is dependent upon government assistance, and some are passing this way of life on to their many children. This is the main problem, if the future generations begin to think this is a good way of life our government will crash, again. Government assistance is a problem due to the fact that; there is no incentive to work, people get handed money with no enforced restrictions, and there is no constant supervision for people, “needing” this assistance.