Welfare Really Fair?

816 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: welfare reform pros and cons

Welfare, a government program created to assist needy citizens, enables them rather than rehabilitates them. There are many ways to make Welfare a more productive and efficient program by changing the managers of the welfare program, providing a rehabilitation program, changing the incentive of Welfare, and by establishing mandatory drug-testing. The overall intention of Welfare is to provide low income Americans as well as children, with money to get them by until they can get back on their feet. Yet the evidence indicates that rather than helping children and parents, they are harming them. Welfare has good intentions; it just needs some guidance in order to show its true potential.
Instead of the Government being in control of Welfare programs, communities or churches should take control. Welfare Recipients become too dependent upon the Government to provide for them. Most of the time when people are on Welfare, they become too dependent upon the Government to provide for them. “My argument is, at parks as in National Parks, if you’ve ever been to one you will have noticed a sign.” Says the account of Templar, “This sign reads “Do not feed the animals”. They put this sign up because if people regularly feed said animals they will become too dependent and will not WORK for their food. ”The Government takes money from contributing workers and turns around to give the money to noncontributing citizens. In the Government, the Welfare System forces people to pay the people on welfare so they can use the money for whatever, but quite frankly this isn’t the government’s job. A problem with the welfare system and its recipients is that the government fails to have a strong hold on the Welfare Program; therefore, becoming too le...

... middle of paper ...

...d just get for free. Welfare benefits exceed that of a minimum wage job. Since the study in 1995, many Welfare programs have changed but Welfare benefits continue to outpace income. In 35 states, Welfare pays more than a minimum-wage job. In 13 states welfare pays more than 15 dollars an hour. Experts, even liberals cannot argue with the fact that just offering benefits to the dependent will overcome their problems. Just offering benefits to the dependent will not cease their problems. The Cato Institute published a ground breaking study in 1995. The Institute released, The Work vs. Welfare Trade-Off, which estimated the value of given welfare against work income. The institute found that not only did the benefits greatly exceed the poverty level but that their dollar value was greater than the amount of take-home income worker would receive from an entry-level job.

Show More
Related

  • The United States Welfare System

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    Welfare can be defined as “systems by which government agencies provide economic assistance, goods, and services to persons who are unable to care for themselves” (Issitt). The United States welfare system is an extremely complex and unique entity that encompasses ideas and concepts from an abundance of different places. Many people believe the current system is an excellent resource for the population, while others believe the current welfare system requires reform and budget cuts to become effective.

    Read More

  • One Nation On Welfare By Michael Grunwald Summary

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    When speaking about Welfare we try to avoid it, turning welfare into an unacceptable word. In the Article “One Nation On Welfare. Living Your Life On The Dole” by Michael Grunwald, his point is to not just only show but prove to the readers that the word Welfare is not unacceptable or to avoid it but embrace it and take advantage of it. After reading this essay Americans will see the true way of effectively understanding the word welfare, by absorbing his personal experiences, Facts and Statistics, and the repetition Grunwald conveys.

    Read More

  • Flat Broke with Children by Sharon Hays

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    It seems like the Welfare system treats its recipients with disrespect and shame to discourage them from joining the system. The people who made and run Welfare in the 1990s made Welfare into a blame game and forces recipients to solely blame themselves for their poverty. The moral prescriptions in individually getting rid of poverty according to TANF are the Work Plan/Family Plan. The focuses on work and family are contradictory because of how little time there is to get both goals done and each goal perpetuates the idea that it is the most important part of ending poverty. It seems like Welfare is more about getting people off of Welfare than eradicating poverty. There is a difference in the goals and that is reflected in how the recipients are treated and how Welfare is run.

    Read More

  • Are Social Welfare Recipients Worthy Or Unworthy

    106 Words  | 1 Pages

    From what I have read from the page it does seem that the distinction is still apart of our Social welfare like the example that the book gave was a single mother where it gives that she could be like that because of her employment status, or being a divorce parent which could cause there circumstances. The question that it gives "are recipients worthy or unworthy" it's basically that people who make bad choices are resulted in the need for an assistance are considered unworthy, but the worthy part is when a widow, or an elder had no control over the events over there personal decision.

    Read More

  • The Pros and Cons of Welfare Reform

    2400 Words  | 5 Pages

    ?Off Welfare, Better Off.? National Center for Policy Analysis. October 1,2002. http://www.ncpa.org/iss/wel/2002/pd100102a.html. (March 26, 2003).

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Welfare Reform

    1609 Words  | 4 Pages

    Working money provides more for families than borrowed money. Money cannot continue to be distributed unfairly from productive Americans to Americans who refuse to be constructive. Americans need to concentrate on the long-term effects of welfare. People are depending on the programs available to survive. What are we teaching our future generations, to rely on someone else? According to _ over one hundred and forty million dollars were spent on SNAP/Food Stamps in February 2016 alone; however, this was only in Tennessee. Welfare recipients are taking advantage of many aid and programs that should be profiting other families or children in crisis. Growing up there were five of us in our household. I have no problem with tax dollars being used to help families in a crisis. There were three children, my dad, and step mom; however, my dad was the only source of income for our family; therefore, my dad had to pay not only his expenses, but for four other family members too. Welfare recipients must think about this on only a small spectrum of how this would affect a family

    Read More

  • The Reluctant Welfare State

    2100 Words  | 5 Pages

    The United States is sometimes described as a “reluctant welfare state.” I agree with this statement. Too often there are programs created by our government that, although may be lined with good intentions, end up failing in their main purpose. The government may, and hopefully does, seek to help its citizens. However, by applying unreasonable qualifying or maintenance criteria, or too many restrictions that bar people from even receiving aid at all, they end up with many more problems than solutions. Three examples of policies that do this are: Medicare, No Child Left Behind, and TANF, or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

    Read More

  • The Pros and Cons of Welfare

    1565 Words  | 4 Pages

    Welfare can be defined as health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being; Prosperity; and Financial or other aid provided, especially by the government, to people in need (Merriam-Webster, 2014). It can be very beneficial to people in need of it. Tim Prenzler stated that, “Welfare systems are often seen as providing a ‘safety net’ that prevents citizens falling below a minimum standard of living (2012, p2). Everyone is able to use is if they are in need of it. People have successfully used welfare to get out of their slum, and started to support themselves. Others have decided to not try to get out of that slum, and live off that welfare. They decided that they didn’t have to try, and let the government support them. Welfare is a good tool for people to get back on their feet, but shouldn’t be that persons steady income.

    Read More

  • The Welfare Reform Law

    1054 Words  | 3 Pages

    Albelda, Randy. “Fallacies of Welfare-to-Work Policies”. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 577, JSTOR Sept. 2001. 66-78.

    Read More

  • Welfare and Government Assistance Policy Recommendations

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Government Welfare System and their Effect on the American Dream

    1497 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Poverty in America

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    The number of people on welfare has been dropping since the early 1990's. Just because you get a job does not guarantee you will go off welfare. Many jobs are low paying and low skilled. These are sometimes the only jobs welfare recipients are qualified for. Programs to train workers are a move in the right direction.

    Read More

  • America's Semi-Welfare State

    1877 Words  | 4 Pages

    The prospect of the welfare state in America appears to be bleak and almost useless for many citizens who live below the poverty line. Katz’s description of the welfare state as a system that is “partly public, partly private, partly mixed; incomplete and still not universal; defeating its own objectives” whereas has demonstrates how it has become this way by outlining the history of the welfare state which is shown that it has been produced in layers. The recent outcomes that Katz writes about is the Clinton reform in 1996 where benefits are limited to a period of two years and no one is allowed to collect for more than five years in their lifetime unless they are exempted. A person may only receive an exemption on the grounds of hardship in which states are limited to granting a maximum of 20% of the recipient population. The logic behind this drastic measure was to ensure that recipients would not become dependent upon relief and would encourage them to seek out any form of employment as quickly as possible. State officials have laid claim to this innovation as a strategy that would “save millions of children from poverty.” However, state officials predict otherwise such as an increase in homelessness, a flooding of low-waged workers in the labour market, and decreased purchasing power which means less income from tax collections. The outcomes of this reform appear to be bleak for many Americans who reside below the poverty line. How does a wealthy country like America have such weak welfare system? Drawing upon Katz, I argue that the development of the semi-welfare state is a result of the state taking measures to ensure that the people do not perceive relief as a right and to avoid exploiting the shortfalls of capitalism ...

    Read More

  • Issues With The Welfare System

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    The welfare system in the United States has had many problems arise in recent years and there has been nothing done to try and fix these issues. Welfare is supposed to be a financial boost for people who are struggling to survive by themselves. However, there are many people trying to take advantage of the system and use the money provided by the government for certain items that are not necessary to live. The other major problem is with the inefficient government that is so divided ideologically that nothing has been done to repair the system because both parties believe that their ideas are more effective than the others. In order to resolve the ongoing dispute of the welfare system, changes to the process of screening recipients and how the government conducts changes to the system have to be made.

    Read More

  • Arguments Against a Welfare State

    1501 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...hose that need them it is impossible. If the government is going to provide things it needs money to do so, and where does that money come from, taxes. Therefore the medication, housing, food and other benefits allotted to those on the welfare system are paid for by masses who actually do work and make something of themselves. Those receiving those benefits either don’t see or don’t care about the cost it puts on the rest of society, and fall into the hole of letting life come to you on the silver platter at the cost of someone else. Hard work is something considered antique, a thing of our grandparents with too many willing to forsake it for a life that isn’t of the highest quality but is of the lowest effort. The rise of the welfare state spells the end of America as we know it, the end of the “land of opportunity” and the beginning of the land of poverty.

    Read More

More about Welfare Really Fair?

Open Document