Welfare in the United States

Welfare in the United States

In the US today we have many resources, and organizations that Americans can reach for when they are in a time of need Some Americans will never reach out towards these “helping hands”, but others will if they fall on to hard times. The United States funds many of these welfare programs for just that, the idea of when someone experiences paucity, their country, the people, can help them. There are many programs with welfare institutions such as the Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and the Social Security Disability Income (SDSI); they can help one with a give a stable income to a not so stable situation. Americans can receive things as discounted items, and food stamps if needed. Though in many cases America’s “helping hands” are being abused, by the growing of welfare fraud, (www.newsmax.com ). Some Americans see this “free money” and extract it for all it is worth, while doing so committing fraud, and or disability fraud; in turn hurting the hard working taxpayer, (www.cbpp.com).There is a growing rise of people becoming dependent

on welfare, instead of taking advantage of their own abilities and working towards their own future goals. America needs to install stricter policies to be able to receive welfare, and those who already receive welfare, and disability. If stricter policies were put in place Americans could actually be saving money overall if welfare organizations could eliminate a majority of welfare, and disability income frauds, (www.cato.org).

Fraud, in welfare terms, could be considered as a number of things, form withholding income to reporting a fictional child to receive more benefits. When receiving welfare, and or disability incomes the welfare system are supposed to have regular case checks on their recipients , but due the number of cases there is a backlog, with some cases going unchecked for years (www.cato.org). Welfare fraud stretches also to things like food stamps, a case in Orange County reveled a numerous number of homes with unreported incomes that were receiving a little over $200 dollars in food stamps, (www.heartland.org). Food stamps generally are limited to families whose gross incomes (before any deductions) are no more than 130 percent of the federal poverty line ($1,848 per month for a family of four). To the working American taxpayers, as of 2001, all together pay about 17.1 billion dollars, which was down form its peak of 24.6 billion dollars, (www.cbpp.org). But many of the offenders get away with having just to serve community service house and the fine of $200, (www.welfarelaw.org). In Honolulu, a 28- year old women, Stella Kelly, and her 48- year old mother, had filed and received $11,00 over a period of time on behalf of two twins. When the Department of Human Resources discovered that the twins never existed the were indicted by the state Attorney General's Office for illegally obtaining public assistance money on behalf of fictitious twins. But be because it was a first offense the punishment was wavered, (www.starbulletin.com ). If the government let them go it gives an open invitation to all those who are treading on thin ice, worried about getting caught for their own welfare offences. There are many problems with the disability incomes now too, because recipients find that disability income is more lucrative to them than welfare is. “A "disabled" mother with three children who had even a limited work history, and having paid into Social Security, may be able to collect through SSDI an average monthly cash benefit of $720, plus an additional $200 per child, bringing the monthly total to more than $1,300 - significantly more than the $550 welfare benefit,”(www.newsmax.com).

As the years have progressed there have been may adjustments to the to some of the welfare policies; A 1996 law was passed to remove from the rolls some 100,000 recipients whose disabilities were drug or alcohol dependencies and who were receiving cash benefits with no requirement for treatment. But even with certain rules put in place, welfare, and disability system have many flaws, (www.newsmax.com). Encouraging work among welfare recipients necessitates that funds be provided for this purpose. But, according to several authors, what is required is not so much major new investments in education and training as resources devoted to helping people find jobs in the private sector. Precisely because it is so difficult to make welfare recipients self-sufficient, there is a growing consensus that more effort should be devoted to preventing dependency in the first place. This means paying attention to a wide range of issues, including declining job prospects for the unskilled (especially men) and widespread deficiencies in the education system. Also, two problems