Should Welfare Checks Have More Strings Attached?
How did it work? By 2000, the number of welfare recipients was 5.4 million people lower than in 1996. More children are growing up in families that have at least one parent employed, and as a result generations aren't growing up to see welfare as a normal way to live. I taught a welfare-to-work population back when this change was implemented, and the most delightful part of teaching them was watching their personal development. Many came in thinking they couldn't succeed, and left with real skills, placed in good jobs - sometimes better-compensated than mine!
Today, there are debates about some other proposed changes in welfare, both in the United States and other places in the world. In Australia, reports of serious child abuse among Aborigine welfare recipients has resulted in many new restrictions being placed on those welfare payments, including proof that children are attending school and submission to a variety of restrictions, like mandatory medical checks for children.
In the United States, the proposals aren't quite so radical, primarily consisting of requirements for welfare recipients to submit to drug tests. If you test clear, you get your welfare; if you fail to show up for the test or test positive, the welfare goes away.
Considering that the last reform of welfare, requiring real work toward getting off welfare as part of the condition for getting on welfare, seems to have worked well, this new move should also work well. But, of course, there are activists who insist that any change in welfare is going to be bad for the children involved, and that welfare recipients should continue receiving unconditional benefits - with as much as we spend on the military we can afford it, right?
However, free money is bad for anyone who receives it. We keep hearing nightmarish stories about lottery winners who go bad after getting their payments. Or rich kids who, with nothing else to do with their lives, engage in self-destructive behaviors. The elimination of responsibility for earning your own money also destroys motivation, and often leads to a life of self-destructive behavior.
Requiring certain minimum standards of behavior is not only fair, it's better for those who receive welfare payments. If you want to keep your children - generally the reason for welfare - you should have to properly feed, clothe, and educate those children. Ensuring they go to school is the least you can do. Staying off drugs and not abusing alcohol removes a risk factor for bad parenting. Getting a job or preparing for a job show children that the working life, not the welfare life, is the future to strive for.
While the Australian example - targeting a specific minority population - is not the right way to go, we can still learn something from it. Why shouldn't we require these things? Welfare recipients are generally just as able-bodied as anyone else in society. It's ultimately all about attitude. If we require self-respecting behavior and some sort of goals from the indigent poor, we may enable them to seek out their American dream, instead of seeking oblivion in drugs and alcohol.
Published by Jamie K. Wilson
Jamie K. Wilson is the wife of a US sailor and mother of two teen boys, one Marine, and two beautiful baby girls. The family hails from Louisville, Kentucky originally. View profile
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13 Comments
Post a CommentYou contact the federal government by voting, Rachel. Vote, vote, vote. Know the issues. Bring a friend with you who wouldn't vote otherwise. And call your congresscritters who do the right thing to thank them for it; you can find their phone numbers online at http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
(continued) to take a hair follicle test(drugs in system for longest, even years) quarterly or bianually, and if there is anything besides prescription drugs(w/ proof of prescription) the person can't recieve the check. I am amazed that this isnt the law yet, i am surprised that the government is coming to this. We are giving billions of dollars a year of our hard earned money to support drug addicts and their habits. If there was such a law instated we would a) save the country billions of dollars a year, and b) give drug addicts incentive to quit either get sober or live on the street(most likely increasing their chances of getting sober.)I hope more people will respond to this so that we can make some sort of difference in this crazy world we live in. Thank you for listening and if anyone knows how to contact the federal government to relay this idea please let me know.
I am so glad i read this blog. I have been enveloped in ager regarding the welfare situation. Basically, the government is telling people " it's ok to sit on your butt, be lazy and smoke pot all day, it ok to get your $600 worth of food stamps a months and sell them for crack and not feed your kids, we are going to give $700 worth of foodstamps to this guy who just got out of prison and is smokin and shooting dope all day with his girlfriend. Everything i just said is personal experience from myself and others. I know because i used to be a drug addict, have been clean for almost two years and know that if i wanted to i could be sitting on my couch smoking crack neglecting kids, and getting paid buy the United States government. Meanwhile, fellow Americans such as myself now, who bust their butt for themselves and their families are forking out tax dollars to support lazy drug addicts. I believe in the idea of wellfare, but i also believe along with what you wrote everyone should have
It costs more to administer Welfare in California than it the money that actually goes to the poor. There really are not enough jobs in some areas that pay enough to buy affordable housing. There are so many problems that need solving it is hard for them to catch the cheats.
You make some good points. Great article.
I don't think walfare is wrong, but I do believe their should ne more restrictions on it, or better monitoring.
Well said!
cont. . . going where it should be going. Radical statement following: there's also no reason that welfare should NOT be humiliating. That's a method of control, a way to motivate those otherwise disinclined to work.
Here's the thing: I have lived around those people who get their check or food stamps and sold them. I've watched government cheese sold for $5 so the recipient could buy marijuana. There is no guarantee that the money is going to feed the children, even when it's direct food aid. And the reason a lot of people stay on welfare is because they don't know there is something better. It may look from the outside as if the work programs were interference, but I saw people transformed. And, bluntly, some people are incompetent people. Remember Pacifier Mom from a couple of weeks ago? Or how about Vodka Mom, homeless mom who mixed vodka with formula? More controls on the money might catch more incompetent people before they enter the child-protective system -- or worse, the criminal-justice system. While many welfare recipients are decent people who've had some bad luck -- I was one for a little while -- the idea here is to clean out the ones that abuse the system, and to ensure that money is
Good article. I do believe that there should be limits to getting it.