Waldstein 1

Hayden Waldstein
Mrs. Langille
English 10B
16 April 2014
Welfare Reform
There are many reasons the American public is almost $14 trillion dollars in debt. Some people believe it is the military spending, which amounted to $526.6 billion dollars in 2014 alone
("Summary of the DOD fiscal year 2014 budget proposal”). However, public welfare is another, more expensive government endeavor with 126 different programs that provide housing, cash, and food stamps to the American people, totaling around $916 billion dollars annually (Rector,
Robert. "How the War on Poverty Was Lost.”). The information examined says that a large portion of the debt collecting from social programs like welfare, the Supplemental Nutritional
Assistance Program (additional assistance to children and single parents or poor families), and wedlock (or, when a child is born on state funds while the parents aren’t legally married) has minimal positive impact on the wellbeing and socioeconomic situation of all citizens. Also, the
126 different social programs that are available to the general public are frequently being manipulated in situations where these public services are not needed by the individual and/or individuals. Because of this manipulation there have to be more restrictions and regulations on the system to avoid abuse and save taxpayer money. And, the way the programs are designed frequently causes people to question their self worth and what their role in society is, enticing immoral behavior like doing nothing and living on government money. The debt can also be attributed to the sheer number of different programs that fall under

Waldstein 2

the initiative.
The first thought people have when they think of public aid or welfare is how people abuse the programs. This abuse stems from people on government programs living outside of their financial means. Today, the typical American living below the poverty line has an apartment in nice repair with air conditioning and satellite TV. His or her home is bigger than the average middle class German, Frenchmen, or Englishmen. They often have color TVs and
DVD players. More than half of the people on welfare have laptops and a third flatscreen TV.
Lastly, the majority of people under the poverty line are not malnourished and didn’t go from hungry for even one day last year ( Rector, Robert. "How the War on Poverty Was Lost”). There are many people using this programs who aren’t experiencing the kind of lackings that they’re designed to address.
Parents who do not work and receive welfare are a problem in the current system. In low income families, the average parent works only 800 hours a year, as opposed to the traditional approximately 2000 hours ( Rector, Robert. "How the War on Poverty Was Lost.). People who are reluctant to work and/or are not working enough have lower yearly income and a higher likelihood of receiving public aid.
The way the program is set up could potentially make people question their self worth.
People who are raised up in one parent househplds are four times more likely to be under the poverty line. (Rector, Robert. "How the War on Poverty Was Lost). A child with a single parent is 50% more likely to go to jail or be poor as an adult. Poor people may not be lazy but at the same time, they’re not stupid either. In a large majority of states, you can make more living on

Waldstein 3

welfare than you can make working for minimum wage (Rector, Robert. "How the War on
Poverty Was Lost). People won’t work when they can make more by doing nothing. America values hard work and intuition, and for someone not working to receive more money than someone who is working makes the working member of society question why they are working at all if it doesn’t provide comparable funds to not working.
In Tanner’S article Why get off Welfare? Some solutions that have been suggested for the program abuse problem are