Report shows why Americans are flocking to welfare

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
2/22/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Welfare pays better than minimum wage.

You have a choice. You may get up, drink your coffee, commute to work, and do your daily grind, dutifully paying your taxes all the way, or you can make it go away with a trip to you local welfare office. Which do you choose? A new report suggests why so many Americans are choosing the latter.

Unless the political will to change develops, the problem will become worse.

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PHILADELPHIA, PA (Catholic Online) - Welfare has a number of people fuming. We spend just over a trillion dollars each year in public welfare assistance. That's over three thousand dollars per year for every American. Consider that half of all Americans pay no taxes, and your bill becomes about 6 grand.

That's right. The first six thousand dollars you earn goes to pay for those who are not working.

Of course, nobody in a country as rich as ours should begrudge the poor a safety net, after all, aren't many of us just one disaster away from it ourselves? Yet what happens when the safety net becomes a hammock?

Those were the words used by Matt Brouillette, from the Commonwealth Foundation, a government watchdog group. Brouillette was interviewed by CBS 21 News reporter Chris Papst as part of his investigation into just how much welfare a person can get.

Papst launched his investigation after a coworker curiously turned down a raise. His coworker, Kristina Cogan, was a single mom of two who explained that accepting the raise would impact her government benefits, so she refused the raise.

This means that you and I, as taxpayers, must continue paying her bills.

Cogan needed the help at the time. Earning just $19,000 per year, she was a recently divorced mom with two kids to support. She explained that walking into the welfare office was scary, but after awhile it became comfortable.

"You do what you have to do as a single mom," she told Papst. She also added this comment: "If you're going to get something for free, are you going to work for it? It kind of like sucks you in. They [welfare recipients] feel like they are hopeless. They feel like they have no alternative."

Cogan is largely correct. People do have that feeling, but why?

A minimum wage earner can work for 40 hours per week and earn a poverty-level wage with little hope of advancement. There's barely enough money to get by from month to month. There's no savings, no decent used car, no living alone. It's roommates and beat-up vehicles, and school will only mean massive student debt without guarantee of a job to pay it off later.

This is a very bleak prospect for the minimum wage workforce, and it's why there is a growing movement to increase that wage. Despite the strident arguments that raising the minimum wage would harm the economy, we might find it to be the lesser of two evils.

That's because the easy way out for many of those workers is welfare. A single trip to the welfare office can make a lot of worries just melt away. According to Papst, Cogan was eligible for as much as $81,000 in public assistance. If she took advantage of all of it, she would be solidly placed in the middle class, without lifting a finger.

Eventually, many minimum wage workers do find the welfare office. For most it's food stamps and a few other smaller programs, perhaps some tuition assistance so they can someday break out of the bottom tier. For others however, it is a way of life.

We have all heard the horror stories about those whose only job is to work the system. Yes, they're out there too.

So what's the plan? Unfortunately, there is none. Just keep feeding the masses bread and circuses.

"This isn't the American dream," Brouillette told Papst. "When there are taxpayer funded programs that could give you the equivalent lifestyle of a middle-class family, why would you have an incentive to go to work?"

The political will isn't there to change the system. Politicians often shy away from talk of cutting benefits or changing the way they are paid for fear of retaliation at the ballot box. The attack ads virtually write themselves.

However, we know as a nation that we need more people working, and paying taxes, if we are to avoid economic meltdown - which admittedly, in an economy probably kept afloat with fiat currency, could already be upon us.

As a nation, we must do a number of things we will not like to reform the system. We do need to raise the minimum wage enough so that people who consider welfare will see a net loss rather than a net gain. It is cheaper to pay a worker minimum wage and collect taxes, even if it's just a few dollars, than to pay out up to $81,000 each year in free benefits.

We must open a path forward, insisting that welfare recipients who are able, attend school, find work, or do something to advance themselves. We need to ensure that we facilitate these positive choices with affordable education, career training, and job placement where appropriate. We do have such programs in most states. However, we need to add to them incentives to make progress, which would include sanctions for those who prefer to remain idle. Those who refuse to make progress should be see ...

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1 - 10 of 12 Comments

Rob502
2 months ago
I have no idea where all the benefits are going. I am on disability. I do not make a lot. I only get sixteen dollars a month in food stamps! Its the single women with kids that are getting it all. To heck with us single guys.
I have been trying to get a PT job. Due to my disability, no one wants to hire me. I am up for a job now, and hope to hear something this week. But while I am hopeful, I am not optimistic.
I am 50, and with the exception of one job, all jobs have been min wage. So, to the people that say that very few people work for min wage, you are nuts, do not know what you are talking about, or a parrot for Rush and Hanity.
I would like to get rid of much help as I can, but I need the disability, and the medical.
I for one am grateful for it, and doing all that I can to help myself.
I am willing, and able to do what I can, wound someone take a chance on me, and people like me? I am willing to work holidays, as long as I can get to church once a week, and the Dr. I will do just about anything that you need.
I will tell you this. I was down at the food stamp office once, and saw these people with smart phones, expensive finger nail work, high priced hair styles, and nice clothing. And were yelling about their food stamps. And her I am getting 16 bucks. HA!

The root is the break down of the family. And the government does not help. They should be putting funds to vocational training, and tie benefits to that. But all the money is put toward collages. Its a racket.

Please, pray for me. I need it. And pray that I can get a decent part time job soon.

PAX
Robert
2 months ago
Now let's watch and see if the USCCB supports an increase in the minimum wage.
Robert Burford
2 months ago
Where was the father of these children? Years ago when ADIC issued checks . Women had children would receive then on the first of the month. At work we would call it " Mothers Day" because all these big muscular men would come by the post office and very concerned about their mothers welfare check and why their mothers had not received the check.They stopped sending out checks years ago but I still remember "Mothers Day" once a month. The biggest welfare is not government but children mooching off their parents. Parents give out of love and enable willingly. Its not mothers with children that I worry about. It is strong health men and women who may not have many skills but would rather live off of family than use their God given skills productively. During the depression my uncles who had jobs would give money to my grandmother who was a widow to support the younger siblings. Where is that generosity today? They did not have to do it. We are a selfish self centered society.
Carmine Troncone
2 months ago
Very few people actually work for minimum wage. I'm 45, have only a high school diploma and I have not worked for minimum wage since I was a teenager. If I lost my job today I could walk into most fast food places an get a job paying a dollar or two more than minimum wage. Keep in mind it is a minimum wage not a livable wage. You should not expect to support a family on minimum wage. Minimum wage is for people who are entering the workforce for the first time. If you raise the minimum wage too high it will just price people out of the job market such as teenagers or maybe someone just out of jail and trying to reenter society. Someone like me might not be willing to work a few extra hours at night to supplement my income for 7 or 8 dollars an hour. Raise the minimum wage to 10 to 12 dollars then yea I might take that job at a coffee shop for a few hours a night. Now do you think Kent T. is going to hire me with my proven work history or take a chance on some kid or guy who just got out of rehab? It may seem compashonate or socially just to raise the minimum wage(after all your not paying it) but that's just not the way economies work.
Kent Trompeter
3 months ago
I am trying to hire a person for part-time work and can't, why? Because it would mean they would stop getting welfare and food stamps, people would much rather just sit on their collective butts!
KATHY
3 months ago
I am for helping anyone who really needs help. Welfare is meant to be temporary. The idea that it is a lifestyle is because the government has allowed it to be a lifestyle. The government has created dependency. Starting in the 1960's, instead of a hand up, it just became a what can I get from the government. I truely believe that if one lies to get welfare, that is a very dangerous sin. You are stealing. The government has also created a means for people to breed illegitament children, by providing housing, food stamps, mcaid, and monthly assistance. I know I sound harsh. Believe me, as I first stated, I would help anyone in need, but this is outragous. We have a whole generation of people who really have no desire to work or to be responsible for their actions. Its really really sad.
Rob
3 months ago
What awful place did you get that picture? So glad this isn't a Christian site. Geez.
Robert
3 months ago
If only the Social Jusctice crowd could understand what they are doing to the American family.

"If a man does not work a man should not eat."
Tammy
3 months ago
My issue with raising the minimum wage is that things will just become more expensive so people receiving minimum wage will still be in the same position. Just my thought.
mgm.
3 months ago
Stagnant wages have been with us for 40 years now ,I was told when I worked that if the line workers pay increases had kept pace with our company's CEO pay we be getting paid 300 dollars a hour not 16 .All Americans pay taxes sure people with low incomes do not pay federal income tax but like been pointed out many times but of course not in the article above pay loco taxes on every thing else like food ,gasoline .electric . heating oil.trash pickup ,and sales tax when they buy that used car.What's with president Obama's photo on the food stamp above he didn't create the program.( what a class act News Consortium is ) President Obama recently proposed a increase in the minimum wage the Republicans had a stroke !The article's Freudian-slip in print "giving the mob (not "masses ),bread and circuses "gives away what the writer really thinks of Americans in need.

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