Welfare Abuse Research Paper

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

Through interviews with welfare workers and recipients, Hays demonstrates the high costs welfare has had on the moral, economic, physical and mental well-being of poor women and their children due to what she considers to be the conflict between the two opposing aspects of reform: work values and family values. She believes that these conflicting values and the inherent weaknesses in the Act contribute to serious and ongoing problems for welfare recipients.

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

In the past twenty years, welfare fraud and abuse has become an overwhelming problem. Large numbers of people are living off the government alone, with no attempt of finding work. Our welfare system is out of date and needs to be slimmed down. Congress needs to eliminate the mindset of Americans that welfare can be used as a free ride through life.

The government in the United States needs to realize that the welfare program is only a burden to our country. Welfare is only shown to be fiscally unsustainable the total amount the government spends on welfare comes out to nearly six hundred sixty eight billion dollars per year. That is sixteen times the amount they spent in the 1960’s and yet the poverty rate still remains almost the same. For those people who are using this program or for the people who support it this number may not mean anything but for all the hard working Americans that work hard for a living it must place a lot of pressure and anger on them. To think

But today many have seen welfare as not doing anything to benefit the United States. Programs are misusing taxpayers money and now with over 109,631,000 people on welfare, over 34% of the United States population, people are becoming too dependent on welfare and are unable to become independent from government assistance. The current system of welfare is inefficient, corrupt,

Welfare started as a temporary response to the economic crash in the 1930s. Its primary goal was to provide cushioning to the families who lost the ability to be self-sufficient during the Great Depression. Yet, as America slowly rose back to becoming prosperous and wealthy, a significant chunk of America's population stayed below in the transitioning social system. The welfare system started to become counterproductive to the government so that, in the 1990s, Clinton hastily came up with legislation to end welfare, more famously known as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. This road that Clinton led ended in a downfall as more people than ever before are now dependent on the federal government for food, housing, and income. Our current welfare reform may need another reform before welfare can truly end.

Thousands of people are signed up to receive welfare in America, this program is designed to aid poor and needy families. However, it has become some people’s way of earning an income. Several argue against and say that welfare is not destroying our country and creating a dependent people who have learned to abuse certain privileges that come with living in this nation.

While there is fraud that happens in the welfare system it is not to the extent to which people think. Welfare fraud does not happen as often as other citizens think. Instances of fraud includes a recipient not recording their income, not recording a source income in the household, and not recording an over payment of cash assistance. According to getoutofdebt.org in the fiscal year of 2004- 2005 there was a total of 425 convictions of welfare fraud in the United States. That is not a massive number when in comparison to the total of people who are receiving welfare.

Welfare abuse is a severe problem across the country. Each year, millions of Americans receive government benefits such as housing assistance, food stamps, telephone service, and other funds. Welfare is a kind of system that is being set by a government to help and assist families and individuals who are having a hard time providing for themselves such as food, clothing, education and health assistance. This program helped many families survive during The Great Depression and still helps families survive today. Welfare, which was once meant to help individuals re enter society, has been abused and manipulated. The abuse of the Welfare System has become a serious problem. Many dependent persons rely mainly on welfare for their sole source of

There remains a remnant of citizens who honestly cannot do without the welfare system and who abide by the regulation of the welfare system, however, the system unintentionally invites scam artists. The ways of abusing the welfare system continuos to grow. Here are just a few of the examples. Citizens are staying single parents in order to receive aid. Parents view having more children as a gateway to receiving more money from the system. Recipients refuse to search for jobs and report employment in order to continue receiving assistance. People seem to easily make false claims, requesting assistance when they do not need it. Although, there is a set time period for receiving funds many citizens become comfortable and lazy during assistance. The whole purpose of the system is to get citizens through rough economical problems and back to a independent lifestyle without government aid. However, the systems seems to encourage complacency in society and provide fraud play in

What would happen if the government made changes to the welfare system? There are approximately 110,489,000 of Americans on welfare. Many people benefit from what the system has to offer: food stamps, housing, health insurance, day care, and unemployment. Taxpayers often argue that the individuals who benefit from the system, abuse the system; however, this is not entirely true. Many of the people who receive benefits really and truly need the help. Even though some people believe welfare should be reformed, welfare should not be reformed because 40% of single mothers are poor, some elderly people do not have a support system, and college students can not afford to take extra loans.

United States Government Welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt thought of this system as an aid for low-income families whose men were off to war, or injured while at war. The welfare system proved to be beneficial early on by giving families temporary aid, just enough to help them accommodate their family’s needs. Fast forward almost 90 years, and it has become apparent that this one once helpful system, has become flawed. Welfare itself and the ideologies it stands on, contains decent fundamentals; furthermore, this system of aid needs only to be reformed to better meet the needs of today’s society.

In our society today, we face many problems such as racism, police brutality, and government issues. One problem that I feel is being over looked is the abuse of the welfare system. Coming from a very low income county, I see how the system is abused, and I also see how it helps those in need. People who are capable of working and supporting their family on their own take advantage of the system to get free money. In 2013, the Census Bureau said that there were fewer full time working Americans than were on welfare. It is absolutely astonishing that there are more people on welfare, who supposedly are unable to work, than capable working people. Americans who truly are unable to work or support their family should have every right to be on

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