Jaded Welfare System?

Question

I used to live in the slums, so I know more about welfare than your average person. People are given money without needing to try and get a job. If they want to take a class (like learning how to be a nurse) it is all paid for. We give them handouts without their needing to work.

This doesn't help them.

They remain in their situation, which is being poor and living off of welfare. I'm all for welfare to help someone out of a rough patch, but I think we should help get them a job, make sure some of their earnings go to savings and rent untill they have enough money to be independant, and then let them do it for themselves.

Why keep freeloaders on welfare?
I don't want to pay for them.

Note: I'm sure someone will call me a hipocrite for having been on welfare and now rejecting the system. Its a good system in theory. But in theory no ones going to use it to be lazy and not have to get a job. I worked past it. Not everyone will and that's why we need to fix our jaded system

Answer 1

I totally agree! I am on welfare. I have three kids. My husband works 50 hours a week while I am a full time student in college trying to get my bachelors in Elementary Ed. I do see people, like my neighbors, who are on welfare and do nothing. My neighbor spends all day sitting on his step drinking beer. His wife doesn't work either. It really aggrevates me. I know that welfare isn't a solution. It keeps lazy people lazy. I am going to get off welfare as soon as I get my degree. I hate the thought of paying for lazy people, but I also know that there are people out there like me who really need it (if not for themselves, but for their kids) until they can get on their feet. Welfare is for those who can work and who will work. Maybe there should be a time limit on it?

Answer 2

Well first off, I am on welfare now, and not because im too lazy to get a job.
I was laid off because the auto factory I worked at closed due to all of our jobs being shipped over seas.
Why should we have hard working americans making the auto parts when we can ship them overseas and get them to do it for a fraction of the price?
I have been going to a program offered by the welfare system you call jaded, so I can learn new skills and try and train for a new job.
I hate being on welfare, I hate being out of a job, I hated having to go into the local office and ask them to pay for my sons funeral after he was murdered.

More and more states are now implementing the project zero policy, meaning you are allowed 5 years of assitance, after that 5 years is up, you get NOTHING.
Most people should in theory be able to get a job and change their life around in 5 years, unless they are homeless, too young, or they have terminally ill children that need constant medical care, or are unemployable due to terminal illness or age or disability.
the next time you see an 80 old lady raising her grandchild with the help of welfare cause his mother abandoned him, tell her to her face shes a lazy freeloader.

Answer 3

I also was on welfare for a short time. I learned to be an RN and support myself & my 2 boys because their father was not about to pay child support & help me support them. This is why so many single parents end up in the welfare system. Iowa was one of the first states to reform the welfare system. If a person can be trained, they will be & then they are put out into the real world. If they refuse to train, they are kicked out of the system, period. I thought all states had implemented this type of policy. Am I wrong? This was 14 years ago that I am talking about.

Answer 4

I agree with you. I have nothing against a social safety net. People have tough times and sometimes need help. But it should not be allowed to be a generational concept.

And yes, partly its because I don't want freeloaders living off the system all their lives, but also it is because simply living off welfare does not exactly provide an ideal life style. This has been particularly true in the African American community, where this liberal culture of handouts has literally destroyed the African American family. A once proud race fighting for their freedom and equality, is now led by thugs and scum and content to live on handouts like a beggar.

This is very simple to understand, liberalism destroys all it touches. Every single thing the liberals have been trying to 'fix' for the last 50 years has gotten worse. Education, poverty you name it.

Answer 5

You pretty much summed it all up for me, i agree as well. When we first moved here we used the system to get on our feet for 1½ months,now we make a decent amount of money. Nothing to brag about but it gets the rent and bills paid, yet because we now we have a steady income i have lost the one thing i did need MEDICAL. We barely make ends meet and on top of not having any spare money to even save i cant shell out $200 month just for my children alone to have insurance. Then i see the average person on welfare, for many many many years and doing nothing to change it. It seems the system is there for those who have no goals and desire to sit on their butts all day waiting for their mail to run so they can cash that check. Supposedly they are working on reforming those individuals but Ive been hearing that now for about 10yrs and see no difference. Be glad you over came being on welfare and have a good job, we sure are :-) geesh i couldn't imagine trying to live on what they give ppl nowadays I'd have to live in a hell hole.

Answer 6

Able-bodied adults can't get TANF. Only those with minor children. There is a 5-year lifetime limit, though special circumstances (parental disability, the need for the parent to care for a dying child, things like that) can lengthen that time. Except for those special circumstances, the adult must be in some type of welfare-to-work program 32 hours a week.

The children, which are those the system is designed to support, are not too lazy to get a job, they're too young.

Answer 7

Thats right, welfare was intended to be a hand up, not a hand out. However once Dems got control of it, they made it into a system with few regs and now its actually keep people down. Not to mention costing the rest of us millions. I'm tired of paying for crack and needles, even condoms. Go and make your own way, it's not my responsibility to feed your addictions, or even your children!

On that note, I do donate to charities, I just resent being compelled to.

PS Someone that attacks you personally for having been on welfare and not your argument is committing a logical fallacy. You have a good argument, wether it comes from George Bush, OJ Simpson or you, it doesn't matter.

Answer 8

How can you be a hypocrite for having been on welfare and now rejecting it?? If anything, that should be the very ideal that you've described!! I wish there were a lot more folks thinking like you.

You're right--an emergency fund for those who absolutely CANNOT do for themselves is one thing. Sitting on your bump while others work hard to feed you is entirely another. There's gotta be a happy medium.

Godiva Peach chick is just being rude and hostile.

Answer 9

Exactly. I've been trying to explain this to people for years but, of course, people tend to just try to shout me down as a rascist or uncaring person.

The whole point is that the welfare system treats people like dogs. We give them regular little deposits of cash, the same way you would feed a dog. We don't supply people on welfare with methods to get out of poverty. Most supposedly caring people are content to just leave those people in abject poverty for their entire lives, soothing their conscience with the fact that we give them a small check every month.

Answer 10

How can they call you a hipocrite when you are now off welfare.I agree with you.I think if a person is found to be using it without trying to get a job then they should have to pay it back.