October 10, 2001
Week 3
Jeremy Vigil
INSTRUCTOR
Bob
Weltzer
In the early 90’s, many people were made to believe that welfare was a parasite on the American economy. We were inundated with pictures of welfare families living off of the taxpayer for many years with out the drive to get off of welfare. Families were not given any incentive to work instead of collect welfare. Welfare had become a way of life not a helping hand. So in 1996, new legislation was adapted to curve this belief. This legislation added a time limit of five years. Welfare recipients couldn’t collect any more benefits after the five year limit. Recipients were encouraged to work after a certain time period. This was set to two years. Benefits are withheld from unwed mothers who are not living with their parents or going to school. Benefits were denied to immigrants. This new legislation has had a dramatic affect on the poor living below the poverty line. I will discuss these changes and give you my view on what was impacted
The five year time limit, I believe was necessary. There was a percentage of families that lived off of welfare because of laziness. These people needed to be given an incentive to find a job or loose their benefits. Most people collecting welfare are off of it with in a few years anyway. These are the people that need a hand because they are willing to work to earn their keep. Five years is enough time to get an entry level job and educate yourself. With an education you can promote yourself or find a higher paying, higher skilled job. Although, I think five years should not be a lifetime limit. During your lifetime you go through many hardships and this can exceed the five-year limit. I think we should have a 2-3 year limit for every ten years. This will keep the welfare lifers a limit on their benefits but also take into account the unpredictable economy. Every so often to American economy takes a dump and jobs are lost. Families need to have welfare available for them when this happens.
It was also legislated that recipients must return to work after two years or sooner depending on the state. This is also a good idea. Most recipients want to return to work. I believe most people don’t want the label of being on welfare. Because of that most people will not have a problem trying to find a job. Finding a job is a different ball game but I believe two years is enough time to find a job. Also, This is enough time for mothers to determine childcare issues.
Childcare is something that needs to be added. I think instead of giving recipients with children more money they should be given a voucher for childcare. The state will mandate childcare providers to obtain a license to cash the vouchers. This will give an added benefit. Childcare providers will only be given a license if they meet some standard given by the state. Providing vouchers can stabilize the childcare market by fixing the cost for childcare. Right now childcare costs are skyrocketing.
Asking woman below 18 to go to school or live with their parents before collecting welfare is not unreasonable. Education is the key to success. This can be given by your school or parents. Women below 18 don’t have to tools to succeed. A skill must be learned to broaden their earning potential. This will help in the long run.
The final action this legislation does is deny benefits to immigrants. This part of the legislation I don’t agree with. I do agree that illegal immigrants should be denied benefits but immigrants we allow should have the same benefits as natural born citizens. Morally, we should be responsible for the people we allow into our country. The alternative is creating more homelessness for minorities. The more productive citizens we have in the states the better we are as a whole.
The above legislation, I believe is a turn in the right direction but the main goal was lost. The creators designed this legislation to reduce the cost to taxpayers. I think the goal should be to help people at the same time. The goal should be to change people from living on the system to productive working citizens. To do this, we should spend more money but not money paid directly to welfare recipients. This money should go to programs that help in the long run.
We need to add
education, job training, health care, job placement and childcare. Changing
recipients to educated skilled workers is more favorable then just giving them
a check to live of off. I strongly
believe in the saying “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day but teach him
how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This philosophy should be added
to the legislation. You add health care
and childcare this will take away many worries families have and channel the
energy saved to more productive uses like school and job training. Adding a
skilled worker to the workforce is far favorable then adding uneducated
ones. It has been proved time and again
that the more educated you are the more your earning potential increases.