Welfare is supposed to be financial support given to people in need. The welfare program began in the 1930's during the Great Depression. The US government wanted to help people and their families that was in need of aid, so they created a welfare program that assistant those who had little or no income. There’s nothing wrong with assisting people who need the help, but the problem arises when people abuse the program. It’s not fair when the government takes money from the hard working people and redistribute the money to the citizens that’s “needy”. Some argue that welfare is a good thing because it helps truly desperate and deserving individuals. If the individuals were truly desperate, then there would be no problem with welfare. …show more content…
Many of the “needy” citizens don’t desire to work a day in their lives, but depend on the government for assistance. If they are so needy why don’t they go out and contribute in the working class society. If a person don’t go out and work for a living then they shouldn’t receive any benefits from the government. Government welfare is abused and should be abolished if the government continue to assist individuals who don’t work, because it teaches bad work ethics and it’s unfair to the working class. Welfare is supposed help boost struggling families until they got back on their feet.
When President Clinton signed the welfare reform bill, he said ''Today we are taking a historic chance to make welfare what it was meant to be: a second chance, not a way of life.” Government assistance has become a target for greedy mothers and other individuals who doesn’t have any value. People have become so used to government assistance instead of using it to stay up while looking for a job, they are sitting around waiting for the next check to come in. Many mothers are steady having children, because more children equals more welfare money. According to Murray, “Woman…who wants to have babies… thinks that the prospect of having a baby is attractive, but so is having money to spend on themselves (65),” it’s sad that’s one of the biggest problems with the current system in place. The money that the mothers receive from the government, they don’t always put to good use. Food stamps are one of the most common assistance programs closely related to welfare and they are one of ones that doesn’t get put to good use. For example, I know several people and heard of several people selling their food stamps. People who don’t receive food stamps go to people who do and buy theirs for half the price. You can get $200 worth of food stamps from them for a $100 just so they can have some cash to go buy whatever they want. The result from them selling all their stamps equals their kids hungry, but …show more content…
they don’t care, they enjoyed the free money they made off the stamps having a good time. The money being generated for government assistance comes directly from those who works hard. When the hard workers receive their checks and see the money taken out for taxes frustrates them. It’s not fair for them to go out and work hard and see the government take their money to help people who doesn’t deserve it. It’s frustrating to see people who receive assistance from the government with brand new up to date vehicles, designer clothes, and other expensive things, but yet the hard working person go to work and barley making ends meet . The system to receive welfare is so simple; any person could get welfare simply by not applying themselves into different job fields.
The application process can easily be manipulated. Conditions and resources a person live by makes a large impact on the application process, but records could easily be falsified to make a person more eligible. After submitting an application for government assistance, they must be interviewed to see if they really need the assistance. The government should be stricter and look more into people situations before giving them assistance. They need to do background checks to check to see what type of person they are dealing with and to see what their work history look like. Another thing they can do is ask for receipts to see what the people bought and make sure it equals the amount they were provided with. It might be a hassle to look at everyone receipts, but if that’s what it takes that’s what needs to be done. Welfare should be given to those who have a serious mental condition or physical disability. People who cannot find work shouldn’t be on welfare because they tend to become lazy in finding a job and some just stop looking because they get money from the government. The government should put a limit on the length of time a person who is unemployed can receive welfare benefits maybe then they will help motivate them to find a job within six months through a
year. An end needs to come to the abuse of welfare. It’s not right for the lazy people who can go out and find a job choose not to and live off government assist. Think about how the tax paying people feel when they look at their checks and see how much the government took for them to help assist people who can work themselves. Nobody wants to help take care of a “needy” person when they can take care of themselves if they stop being lazy.
There have been numerous debates within the last decade over what needs to be done about welfare and what is the best welfare reform plan. In the mid-1990s the TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act was proposed under the Clinton administration. This plan was not received well since it had put a five year lifetime limit on receiving welfare and did not supply the necessary accommodations to help people in poverty follow this guideline. Under the impression that people could easily have found a job and worked their way out of poverty in five years, the plan was passed in 1996 and people in poverty were immediately forced to start looking for jobs. When the TANF Act was up for renewal earlier this year, the Bush administration carefully looked at what the TANF Act had done for the poverty stricken. Bush realized that, in his opinion, the plan had been successful and should stay in effect with some minor tweaking. Bush proposed a similar plan which kept the five year welfare restriction in place but did raise the budgeted amount of money to be placed towards childcare and food stamps. Both the TANF Act and Bush's revised bill have caused a huge controversy between liberal and conservative activists. The liberals feel that it is cruel to put people in a situation where they can no longer receive help from the government since so many people can not simply go out and get a job and work their way out of poverty. They feel if finding a job was that easy, most people would have already worked their way out of poverty. The conservatives feel that the plans, such as the TANF Act, are a surefire way to lower poverty levels and unemployment rates as well as decrease the amount o...
The new reforms, put into action by President Bill Clinton, have succeeded in dropping the recipients off the rolls. Dan Froomkin, of The Washington Post, says that under the old system, welfare was handed out to anyone for any number of years. The new system, however, requires most recipients to work within two years of receiving assistance, and limits most assistance to five years total (internet). Welfare was also misused by allowing mothers to keep having children, enabling them to receive additional benefits. Froomkin reports that the new reform allows states to establish a policy where welfare families are allowed no added i...
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
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.
In the United States, roughly 30,000,000 people are on some form of welfare. That is 8% of the United States population! Should there be more restrictions to welfare? Some people believe that welfare should have restrictions, while others believe it should not have restrictions. What somewhat drives this controversy is whether welfare is effective, considering it is prone to be exploited.
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.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy raised the current welfare payments and renamed the program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Kennedy allowed states to require work in order to receive welfare, but didn’t require it. Kennedy also laid out the new goal for welfare in America, it was to “end poverty, not just alleviate poverty” (Background: Time for a new Approach). Kennedy said welfare should be “a hand up, not a hand out." Welfare continued to change...
Welfare for the poor means minimal support, degrading, humiliation and continued poverty. On the other hand, welfare for the non-poor provides security and are based on legitimacy. The welfare system does not distribute benefits on the base of need but rather on the basis of legitimacy. Poor people are often view as less legitimate as compare to the non-poor. Furthermore, welfare programs for the poor are labeled and can be seen as disgraceful. As stated in the article there is much degradation and humiliations involved in some poor people’s programs that some try greatly to stay off welfare. Some who are qualified for the programs do not take it due to negative indignity and shame that comes along with it. In comparison to welfare programs for the non-poor much protective language is taken to cover up and camouflaged the wording of the programs. Another, important difference between welfare for the poor and welfare for the non-poor are level of government involved. Welfare programs for the non-poor are federally financed and administered with decisions on eligibility and on levels of support made nationally. Programs for the poor are usually supported by federal funds and administered as local programs. I asked my boyfriend what his thoughts were on social security and welfare he responded that they were two completely different programs .He stated
When you hear the words “welfare” what comes to mind? To me, the word welfare has always had a very negative connotation. However, after looking further into the concept behind it all, welfare isn’t always such a bad thing. In general, welfare provides financial stability for those who are otherwise unable to do so. Welfare can be very beneficial to a multitude of people with many different ways to make life easier. Welfare in the United States refers to a federal welfare program that has been put into place to benefit unemployed people or just your average lower class person. The most common forms of welfare are Medicaid and food stamps. Believe it or not, a welfare program is not a new idea. Welfare has started long before we were born. In the early days of welfare, the British put into place something called “poor laws”. These laws distinguished who was able to work and provide for themselves and who wasn’t due to physical condition or even how old they were. This was very similar to what President Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the times known as the great depression. The Social Security Act was amended in 1939, which gave lower income people more money throughout the depression. Unemployment Compensation and Aid to Dependent Children are two welfare programs that are still out there today. Welfare programs can benefit you in areas such as health, housing, tax relief and just more money in your pocket. Welfare is not only an American idea. In the Islāmic culture the word zakat means charity. Zakat is actually one of the five pillars of faith. This money has been collected by the government since the 7th century. The taxes, however, still have the same benefit to us. The taxes were collected and used to provide income to ...
The United States government’s welfare program is potentially sending the government down the drain. The U.S. alone is in millions of dollars of debt, and the welfare program is not helping to get the country out of debt but further into debt. Over half of the American population is currently receiving some sort of benefit, and not every person receiving these benefits needs the money. We live in a selfish society. A society where we would do anything and everything to gain a little extra money so we will not have to work for it. The welfare system the United States currently runs is not proper or right. The welfare system is corrupted and full with cheats and frauds benefitting from taxpayers money.
Although it can be interpreted many ways, welfare is interpreted by many as food stamps. According to the U.S. government site, welfare doesn’t stop at food stamps, the program can range from medical assistance to child support programs (1). Citizens in favor of the program argue that the program is very diverse and beneficial to most Americans and deserves all the funding it can get. “The vast majority of American -- about 96 percent -- benefit from some kind of government social program” (Morgan 1). If 96 percent of Americans benefit from some type of welfare who would want to cut
In conclusion, I feel the welfare system was intended to be an ethical program. Over the years it has become more and more distant from the aiding program it was designed to be. It has become more of an enabling program. I feel the welfare program enables people receiving benefits, the guidelines should be stricter, and the program could possibly be eliminated. There are too many people receiving benefits abusing the system, and unfortunately ruining a good thing for people abiding by the rules. Just like the saying, “One bad apple ruins the whole
Welfare states are a way for the state to establish and finance public utilities, implement and improve a set of social welfare policies and systems, intervene in social and economic life, and ensure the normal operation of social order and economic life. In Schwartz's "History of American Law," the welfare state refers to the historical stage between the Roosevelt New Deal and the outbreak of World War II.
...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.
They will do anything to get more money from the government, even though most capable of living without the welfare programs. The programs are way too easy to be fraud and that is why so many people out there put down false informations so that they can receive more money than necessaries. Some would even use their medical benefit and go to hospital or emergency room for a small, minor problems like a pregnancy test which cost the hospital money. Some would buy things using food stamps and return them later so they can get cash in exchange and buy unnecessaries. Some say that there is no job opportunities out there for them but they do not even try to get a job. Most of the time, people tend to be lazy and do not want to work or even try to work their way out of “poverty” that they are in. If an individual that have welfare, he or she would feel financially stable and not willing to work. Welfare is a easy way to live and enjoy life without working for those that abuse and overuse it and they end up jobless and still receiving