Summary Of Flat Broke With Children By Sharon Hays

In the United States there are “over 100 million people receiving some form of federal welfare” (Munoz#7). The purpose of creating the welfare system was to provide aid to those families with “little to no income” (article 1). Back in 1996 Clinton passed the welfare reform act; allowing state full control of the welfare system. The Welfare Reform Act was to help steer welfare

Welfare reform is viewed by many as an attack on poor, single mothers. According to Rebecca Blank, “single-mother families are the largest (and fastest-growing) family type.” They also make up nearly all of the families who receive welfare (only 7% of welfare recipients live in two-parent households and even fewer welfare households are headed by men, according to Hays.) Hays also notes in the book that these single mothers are frequently derided as lazy, promiscuous, and are accused of abusing the welfare system for their ill-gotten gains (which in most cases total the princely sum of less than $500 per month.)

That is equal to approximately 109,631,000 people. Not all people on Welfare abuse the advantages, most use the program the way that it was intended for, but in 2015, 10.1% of all Welfare payments were improper, meaning the recipient misuses the funds given. The 10.1% is equivalent to $71.5 billion and 11,072,731 people exploiting the system (federalsafetynet.com). To be using the money of people who work hard to earn a living, to be lazy is incomprehensible to me. Living off of other people who are working hard is not living, although the idea of not having to work and instead just be given money to spend on whatever you desire may seem enviable, it is the epitome of the “fun oriented” society. “Did the natural right to pursue happiness become somehow the right to get happiness and did that right inevitably degenerate into a right to have fun- for the simple reason that the impossibility of guaranteeing fun is less obvious than the impossibility of guaranteeing happiness?” (Can we survive the fun explosion?). There is a legitimate fear that the other millions of people not on Welfare will see how the other half living off Welfare will think that it is a viable option because they no longer have to put forth any pursuit for happiness. Their ticket to happiness is handed to them. Then our country will evolve into a crumbling mess because no one will be working to support

During the Reagan presidency in the 80s, he talked about welfare queens and gave her a popular identity. However, the welfare queen emerged from a racist history of resentment and hatred towards African American families receiving welfare in America. After twenty years of the welfare reform being enacted this narrative continues to inform policy designs by dictating who deserves of government support and under what conditions. Ending this negative stereotype of the welfare queen would help if society accepted how stereotypes continue to manifest and reorganizing the system around families as they are and not

The clip from Claudine displayed stereotypes that welfare is for single black women who have multiple kids and no husband. Also, in Cinderella Man, if you were a white person receiving welfare it was a disgrace and you were looked down upon or disowned. Holly wood reflects public assistant recipients by making people feel ‘unworthy, undeserving, or like a charity case’. For instance in Cinderella Man, he literally had to beg the ‘worthy’ or rich people for money to help cover the rest of his bills. Recipients may feel dependent on a system that cares nothing for their safety and security. Welfare can reflect recipient view of work. They may feel if they work too hard, they were be forced to be independent and provide everything (food, shelter, affordable home) on own, therefore no longer receiving

The United States recently experienced one of the greatest "booms" in our economic history. More people were working than ever before. People were buying houses at a faster rate than they have in decades. Yet there were many people still living from paycheck to paycheck, or welfare check to welfare check. The subject of welfare stirs different passions in different people. Some say that those who are on welfare should be taken off, with no hope of survival afterward. They should "support themselves," these people say. Others believe that these welfare recipients should be able to stay on the rolls indefinitely. I think that people who are on welfare, who are physically capable to work,

Welfare is a system that was put into place to give financial help to people or groups who can't support themselves. A problem with welfare is that it usually leaves out the people who are in extreme poverty. The definition of extreme poverty is anyone or any family that are under less than half the poverty brink. For these Americans it is often to hard for them to maneuver themselves through the the welfare system. Other people can also have addictions or poor education and are unable to navigate through the system either. This is one reason why there are so many home less and unsafe people.

Welfare is made for people who have been hard on there luck. The idea that the government gives assistants in order for recipients to become financially stable in order to improve the economic statis works very well in theory. Welfare can be looked at in two different ways. One of these ways is that welfare should be used as a temporary source in order to supplement an existing paycheck until you can make ends meet. The other way is to completely get a person of out of poverty and to become apart of the working society.

While welfare reform did benefit many people, welfare reform ended up costing the government more in "tax credits, food stamps, and Medicaid," according to CBO (Washington Post). This was essentially welfare all over again wrapped in a less conspicuous packaging. Moreover, most families in poverty do not receive welfare. Just a little above 23 percent of all families with children living in poverty receive aid, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is because of the strict policies and hidden limitations that the new reform set. Education and training were required to get a mandatory job which then allowed for one to receive welfare. Also committing a crime would void welfare, even if it was done to feed one's family according to the article, Picture this: Images and Realities in Welfare to Work (italicize), by Olson, Muhammad, Rodgers, and Karim. The reality is that many of the ads for the new welfare system were "misleading...[as many realized] that they would need education and training to get jobs that would allow them to support their families" (Karim). It was like asking someone to commit to two things separately in separate places. It was almost impossible to keep track of one's family and train and go to school at the same time. Hence, about 67% of families in poverty did not receive welfare. In fact, most of the job opportunities that were shown did not "pay enough to really

The welfare systems are based on the principle of public responsibility on equitable wealth distribution and equality of opportunities to citizens who are unable to afford minimal levels of quality and good life, through provision of universal education programs, health care and subsidised housing. In most of the states, welfare systems are not used in the right manner they are intended to. Although the systems are meant to reduce the poverty level and at least assists individuals to get decent jobs, many recipients develops news ways every year to prolong their dependency in the system. Statistics show that women easily abuse the welfare system by simply having more children each year since this means that more money will come in their mails. Most of the recipients on welfare are able to work

Lastly, some people on welfare are just to lazy to go get a job. Some people are contempt with sitting around watching daytime T.V. and collecting taxpayers' money. While not all welfare receivers are lazy some abuse welfare such as this example, "I know a welfare recipient who has two kids and is currently enrolled in college (last semester she made the dean's list), who couldn't really make it without some assistance. But on the other end of the spectrum, I know of women who have never held a job and have survived on welfare since I've known them, and I think if I can work 35 hours a week and take a full course load, they can at least get one damn job"(Handy). The system seems too easy to abuse in the first place. As long as one is unemployed and meets all the qualifications one can receive welfare and if one maintains this status with the intent to get a get a job then he or she remains on the list to receive government money and benefits. Welfare isn't

The welfare system first came into action during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployed citizens needed federal assistance to escape the reality of severe poverty. The welfare system supplies families with services such as: food stamps, medicaid, and housing among others. The welfare system has played a vital role in the US, in controlling the amount of poverty to a certain level. Sadly, the system has been abused and taken for granted by citizens across the country. The welfare system was previously controlled by the federal government until 1996; the federal government handed over the responsibility to the states in hope of reducing welfare abuse. However, this change has not prevented folks from scamming the system. The

Welfare should not be reformed because it helps single parents. 40 percent of single mothers are poor, 12 million single parents-mother-headed families are poor (Freeman). Welfare can help keep these single parent families stay stable to be an effective families. 12 million single parents mothers headed families can be reduced to less underachieving families with the assistants of welfare. Also with single parents they never had an significant other.

Throughout history, there have always been people willing to work for what they want, and those who expect things to be handed to them as if it was a natural-born right. While the welfare system does positively impact some families in need, many people take advantage of it. With this being a well known fact, the government still continues to use ten percent of the federal budget on welfare (“Budget” 1).

Most of the people believe that many welfare recipients are abusing the system in more ways than one.