Welfare in America
A good friend of mine asked me today to blog about welfare. Welfare brings up many social, political, and moral issues. One way to frame the issue is: why do we give money to lazy people. Another way to frame the issue is: why do we give money to those that convince the government that they are financially less fortunate and deserving of welfare. The latter is the best way to frame the issue.
I chose the latter because I did a little research and discovered that it would be inappropriate to classify welfare recipients as LAZY. Statistically speaking, 60% of welfare recipients are older than 45 or younger than 18. I know arguments can be made that people between 45 and 65 should work, but I’m gonna say for arguments sake that those people are out of the prime working years. So if they are not working because they are lazy, that’s okay, because we really don’t want them to work if our 18-45 year olds can get the job done. What I’m trying to say is this: we can’t call 60% of welfare recipients lazy, because they are not called to the workforce. Children under 18 make up 25% of welfare recipients, we can’t require child labor, so they are out of the question. People older than 65 make up another 15%, that brings us up to 40%. And people 45-65 make up 20%. So we have a grand total of 60%. And those people cannot be said to be avoiding work, because society doesn’t call them to work.
Now we need to analyze the other 40% that could be classified as lazy. Of that 40%, 65% are on welfare for a limited period (often 3-5 years). So we must presume that 65% must have gotten a job, or simply decided not to take the benefits they qualify for. I’ll presume the former. That leaves us with 35% of the remaining 40% that are on welfare for a substantial period of time. That leaves us with 14% of welfare recipients that could theoretically be abusing the system because they are lazy frauds.
This 14% is what welfare critics must be complaining about. Well, not exactly… They are complaining about the ones that don’t deserve the benefits. A single mother of three that is working two waitressing jobs, but can’t quite make ends meet; so she goes on welfare, isn’t who any reasonable person would be complaining about. I don’t have any statistics on this, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say at least half of this 14% are not frauds. So that leaves us with 7% that slip through the cracks of the bureaucracy (constructively speaking).
What do we do about these people (which is a big assumption in and of itself that they are in fact cheating)? What things ought we do to ensure that they are not stealing our welfare money because they are lazy addicts? Many argue for drug testing. That would mean that we would have to drug test all welfare recipients because 7% may be cheating the system. Some people will say that we should drug test them all, because we shouldn’t give welfare to any drug user, regardless. Again, I want to focus on the cheaters. If you can use drugs, use welfare for a few years and get back on your feet, and you become a productive member of society, despite your addiction, more power to you (that does bring up other issues though)! So I am still focusing my energy on that 7%. It wouldn’t be fare to assume that all of them are on drugs, cheating welfare requires an elaborate scheme that most addicts aren’t capable of. So, at most half of the 7% could be drug addicts–3.5% of welfare recipients. When it boils down to that, it really seems like a waste of time and resources to require all recipient to be tested for drugs because of this small percentage–the moral, ethical, and social considerations aren’t even worth discussing now.
So now we are again left with what to do with this remaining 7%! Drug testing won’t help us. Should we make stricter guidelines to receive welfare? We must remember that 65% of all recipients are only on welfare for a short period of time and eventually get back on their feet. Making the process harder would really hurt these people that do eventually benefit from welfare and become productive members of society. But we still have those 7% that slip through the cracks. So is it worth it to heighten the standards (which would probably cost a lot of money), to thwart that 7% that could be cheating welfare? From a simple utilitarian position–which works here–it would be absurd to heighten the standards.
So what can I conclude: NOTHING? I made a lot of presumptions, but I think I was pretty reasonable in my analysis. It sounds like welfare is alright the way we currently have it (with the exception of a few minor tweaks). An argument could even be made that it leaves out deserving non recipients (thats another blog issue). It probably unjustly leaves out just as many deserving citizens as it lets in.
So what do we do??? That’s why this blog has a spot for COMMENTS. Talk to me people!
A Personal ELENCHUS 
You must have “enjoyed” the comments made by SC lieutenant governor Andre Bauer. No wonder he’s Gov. Sanford’s insurance policy against being removed from office!
Funny 🙂
Nice work, Chris. Europeans have a much different view about benefits and social insurance. Our means-tested system promotes class warfare and tolerates 20% child poverty rates in the name of so-called efficiency. Ugh.
Post links to your sources if possible! I’d use some in class perhaps…
Definitely! I think the info I used in the welfare analysis was 2008 info from the CIA website (I should’ve mentioned it). I’ll see if I can dig up the source during class today ;)…
Thanks for the feedback!
Chris, I think this is a well-reasoned, eye-opening analysis. I’d really like to do an analysis on this from a constitutional perspective though. Certainly drug-testing would have some constitutional implications, possibly even prohibit it. I find it ironic that many conservatives would like to go back to a strict interpretation of the Constitution in order to prohibit gun control, abortion, etc. But, they never consider that ideas like drug-testing welfare recipients or prohibiting gay marriage would certainly be prohibited under a strict interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. I think the reason for this is ignorance. Most people think that if they know the Bill of Rights, they know the Constitution. They either don’t know, or don’t want to know, about that pesky little 14th Amendment, Due Process and Equal Protection, my favorite amendment.
Yes! As Thurgood Marshal said, “The Union survived the civil war, but the constitution did not”–hence the 14th Amendment.
Chris,
I am not usually into politics, but working in the health care field allows me to have insight on this subject. I completely agree with the fact that only around 7% of the people on welfare are abusing the system, but those 7% are the people we health care professionals see 90% of the time because they can take up our time without worrying about payment! That is why we easily get annoyed with this issue. They are the ones on pain killers/narcotics all the time and if their doctor doesn’t give them what they want, they just go to the ER and get IV diluadid to ease their pain! They are the ones who take up over 1/2 hour of a pharmacist time to complain that their insurance won’t give them the newest glucometer to test their blood sugar (because thank God Medicaid only pays for 1 every 2 years), or complain because they think it’s your pharmacies fault….and the only reason they want this new meter, is because they want the different colors to match their clothes! (that sounds ridiculous, but I have heard it before). Or they are the person who goes to the doctor to get adderall sripts (brand name only) and you have heard rumors that they sell it, and even though you can let that dr know about it…they just go to another dr to get it (because these appointments don’t cost them anything!).
So this is why we complain. This is why we want the govt to do something! If only us health professionals could report to the govt the certain individuals that we think are abusing the system and then the govt could put them into review to see if they really should be receiving assistance. Just a simple drug test would throw most out.
Hi Ashley! First of all I truly appreciate your response. That is the reason I started this blog, so I could become more informed. And you have given me insight that few people in the world are able to observe–first hand.
However, I did notice a few flaws. You equate people that fraudulently obtain prescription drugs to the 7% of people that may or may not be cheating welfare to obtain long term benefits. We are mixing apples and oranges or beer and wine 🙂
I know there are a lot of frauds out there, but they aren’t all conspiring together. The fact that people (with health insurance) obtain and abuse prescription drugs is major issue entirely separate from people (usually without insurance) that obtain and abuse the 25k a year or so that they can syphon off the government. Do you know that it costs more money to support someone in Prison than it does a family on welfare? True!
Maybe I’ll write on your topic later, but the focus is whether that 7% are all drug users. My answer was NO. Maybe half of them our, leaving us with 3.5% to be concerned with. All the while we have a 95% + rate of non drug users on welfare. I think thats alright…you can disagree. Just tell me why.