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Welfare reform

Welfare reform A popular social issue, the United States welfare system, has created two opposing viewpoints, each including both positive and negative aspects and opinions from many people. This public assistance program and many similar ones are believed by some to be very beneficial to needy recipients of our country. On the other hand, others such as myself, believe that public assistance programs can be a burden on our society. Moving from welfare to work is not an easy task. Sustaining this type of success requires a lot of time and effort. In my opinion, in the long run, the negative aspects of our welfare system outweigh the positive ones. In a welfare state, the government offers programs to protect citizens against economic risks and uncertainties at some, or all, stages of their lives. All forms of financial aid and welfare services given by governments to their welfare recipients come from taxes paid by the citizens and corporations of the United States. In other words, money is taken from some people and handed out to others. The welfare system includes any government assistance program where people’s eligibility is determined by their In recent years, policy-makers of the welfare program have come to believe that certain changes should be made to our welfare policy. Instead of just offering money to its recipients, the government also offers job opportunities and training for these people on welfare. The main goal of the welfare program is to get people off of welfare and into jobs. The welfare program is meant to be only temporary. Under the welfare reform bill of 1996, Bill Clinton added many limitations on America’s welfare policy. The president’s plan proposes a two-year lifetime limit on welfare for most recipients. Work requirements and welfare time limits are two of the current changes to America’s welfare system. Due to President Clinton’s recent Administration’s plan, “welfare reform has given states and localities flexibility to address welfare-to-work issues” (Relave 2). The welfare reform project is designed to provide recipients with the training, child care and other services they need to find jobs. Under welfare reform, each state designs its own welfare program. California’s program is called CalWORKS (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids). Under CalWORKS, those who seek welfare must also find work. Current recipients are entitled to 24 moths of aid. There is a five-year lifetime limit for those who are parents. If welfare recipients have made an effort to find work, but have been unsuccessful after their time limit, they will me moved into community service for up to three years. During this time, they will keep their benefits, but not a collect a salary. After a family has been on aid for five years, they will be provided with child-only grants. As to almost any other rule, there are exceptions to the welfare program, one of which is that it has exemptions on the time limit for people who receive welfare. Some exemptions include teen mothers, disabled welfare recipients, and recipients enrolled in community college programs leading to employment. (Relave) As mentioned earlier, the welfare program of the United States has brought about two opposing viewpoints; one of which is the belief that welfare is very advantageous to certain people. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of [her/him]self and of [her/his] family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond [her/his] control” (Albisa 1). Welfare helps fulfill this right to people who do not have any jobs and are having trouble finding one. Welfare provides assistance against economic insecurity through government programs. For instance, it provides monthly welfare checks and food stamps, vouchers used for buying food, for welfare recipients. In addition, the welfare program offers job opportunities as well as job training and education. Limitations to the welfare program, such as the imposition of time limits and work requirements, motivates some recipients to seek jobs. The welfare system tries to help people reach economic self-sufficiency by “helping recipients to stay employed and improve the quality of jobs over time through higher wages, better benefits, and greater job security” (Relave 4). It is up to each recipient to either keep their jobs or get back on welfare. Unfortunately, not every individual living on welfare is willing to work. Some like the idea of not having to work while still receiving monthly checks. These people take advantage of our government programs. People like this become dependent on the program, and take advantage of it as much as possible. Without given certain limitations to receiving welfare benefits, “nearly 65 percent of the people on welfare at any given time will be on the program for eight years or longer” (Tanner 1). Similarly, “children raised in families on welfare are seven times more likely to become dependent on welfare than are other children” (Tanner 1). Also, welfare can lead to illegitimacy. Based on statistics, “there is strong evidence that directly links the availability of welfare with the increase in out-of-wedlock births” (Tanner1). In addition to dependence and illegitimacy, “the ready access to a lifetime of welfare and free social service programs is a major contributory fact to the crime problems we face today” (Tanner 1). Welfare can destroy the family structure, for example, by replacing the supportive role of parents, especially fathers, with the welfare Even though the welfare program offers job opportunities to recipients, many do not take advantage of it, mostly because of their laziness and, as already mentioned, because of their dependence on the program. Therefore “welfare doesn’t even reduce poverty” (Tanner 1). Moreover, trillions of dollars were spent on social-welfare programs in the last forty years, “yet the poverty rate today is higher than when we began” (Tanner 1). Many other problems have risen from the current welfare system. One is that “training programs can also provide an incentive to stay on welfare” (Chavez 1). Since there is recently some lack in job availability in our society, “training becomes critical in helping recipients locate work” Mistrano 2). Without more jobs, recipients are Another weak side of the welfare policy is that welfare programs cost more money now than ever before, at the taxpayers’ expense. Unfortunately, “we have spent $5.4 trillion on antipoverty programs since 1960” (Congressional Research Service 2), and still the poverty rate is higher than when public assistance first began. As statistics have shown, “it is clear that we have spent a lot of money on a lot of poverty programs, yet the poor are still with us- in greater numbers than ever” Congressional Research Service 4). As a result, taxpayers “end up spending more money on programs that don’t work while another generation of recipients is condemned to hopelessness, dependence and despair” In contrast to having faith in America’s welfare system, the reaction against welfare has stronger support, with only a few weak points. One weakness is that not receiving any kind of government financial aid can lead to an increase in poverty for individuals who are in poor financial conditions. Even though this aspect is a weakness of being on welfare, it is also a negative aspect of not being on welfare. This is due to the possible lack of job availability in our society for certain people. In other words, if there are no available jobs out there, then an individual in need can reach poverty, no matter if they are a welfare recipient or not. On the contrary to this negative position, an individual who is not dependent on welfare is much better off in society. Individuals can make more money working than living off of welfare. For instance, “a preliminary study of the system by Mathematica Policy research has found that about 35 percent of the 1,400 welfare families had left the roles and found jobs that paid an average of $1,600 a month, nearly double the $800 average for those in the study who remained on welfare” (Peterson 2). Even though $1,600 a month is not a tremendous amount of money, it is a lot more than what a Similarly, the government would also save money. For example, “with more people working, fewer will depend solely on the government for support, and thus less tax dollars will be needed” (Ringel 2). Also, “taxpayers will not feel as though they are being taken advantage of when welfare recipients have to work in order to receive benefits” (Ringe1 2). Working provides self-reliance for people. Most everyone would rather work and support themselves, rather than be supported by the government and live on welfare benefits. Living welfare-free provides independence sense of freedom for individuals. In addition to feeling good about themselves, people can feel proud of themselves just because of the simple fact of knowing that they can live without being dependent on anyone or anything but themselves. On top of making more money and having self-reliance, a non-welfare life provides altruism; consideration for other people without any thought of self as a principle conduct. People who “move off of welfare and into the workforce will conserve altruism” (Ringel 2).People become less selfish and more caring when they stop receiving public assistance. Welfare to work is an important topic, which should be discussed while hearing both points of view. In my opinion, welfare is not too great of a program. I believe the negative side outweighs the positive side of the argument. Therefore, welfare should be banned altogether in order to make our society a better place to live. According to my sources, “the president’s plan makes recipients even more dependent on public aid” (Chavez 1). Welfare recipients need less benefits, and need to be pushed more in order to be motivated to seek and hold jobs in our country. Also, job training is not guarantee that “recipients will ultimately take jobs” (Chavez 2). In conclusion, “replacing unearned benefits with earned wages is the only solution that will promote both self-reliance and altruism” (Ringel 2), not to mention a better way of living on our tough society. Bibliography:

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