Welfare Programs Have Become a Lifestyle for the Poor
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English 122
December 3, 2016
Welfare Programs Have Become a Lifestyle for the Poor
Welfare refers to the provision of assistance to persons in need to help them sustain their lives within a given period. The United States government runs different welfare programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Stamp Food programs (SNAP) among others, which support needy people in varied ways so that they can improve their poor living standards. Welfare programs are intended to be temporary assistance, and the beneficiaries should not feel comfortable or take advantage of the help to avoid working and earning wages that would allow them to be self-sufficient. Consequently, this essay aims at understanding the state of welfare programs considering they were originally developed to act as a safety net for people living under the poverty line, but have since become a lifestyle for the poor. Bruce Barnes said that in his 30+ years of experience, there have been many clients who failed to make any effort whatsoever to lift themselves out of poverty. Many clients have good intentions, but when the start receiving benefits (cash), good intentions go by the wayside and clients adapt to a standard of living that can be supported with the benefit they receive. According to Barnes, the mission of the Department of Human Resources (DHS) is “to provide a safety net, family stability and a connection to careers that guide Oregonians out of poverty.” He suggests that in the past DHS did not have enough staff to keep track of a recipient’s mandatory participation activities and without supervision, many clients got comfortable doing nothing and never were required to do more. However, he noted that now the number of recipients receiving TANF benefits is on the decline, and the actual caseloads assigned to each Case Manager is such that monthly contact between a client and their Case Manager is attainable.
Americans are lead to believe that welfare programs promote self-sufficiency in a short period of time. However, according to Dr. Patrick Fagan, this is not true and our welfare programs promote dependency on government support that can last a lifetime and subsequently become the lifestyles of future generations. Dr. Fagan believes children continue to suffer as a result of the failure of our government to provide services that move parents out of poverty and a pathway towards self-sufficiency. Most welfare programs do not yield positive outcomes for children and unfortunately has negative effects on a child’s overall development (Fagan).
Several barriers have hindered single-parent households receiving assistance from progressing off of welfare and attaining income that would allow them to be self-sufficient without assistance. States take on the task of offering families living below the poverty line with temporary financial aid among other forms of support. Equally, welfare programs such as TANF offers other job services such as job specific training with the sole purpose of preparing and coaching recipents toward jobs that will help them remain self-sufficient. In many cases, receipients remain on welfare because they lack an education or basic skills needed for a lifetime of work (Telleen and Sayad 2). The training offered in the TANF Program encourages participants to restructure their lives so they are able to obtrain and keep jobs (Telleen and Sayad 2). However, many of the participants face some challenges in the process of transition, and the program providers can not control many situations. For example, the life led by a participant in the past clearly impacts the switch from welfare-to-work (Telleen and Sayad 2). Also, a participants place in the family’s life cycle such as bearing children and seeing children through their pre-school days affects the transition progress. Issues such as maternal depression and illiteracy also hinder this change, which puts women in a position of living in the poverty state (Telleen and Sayad 2). Consequently, participants, especially women, remain comfortable in their current situation and allows welfare to become a lifestyle.
Welfare programs have become the lifestyle of the poor because the recipients experience difficulties in reaching self-sufficiency. Factors such as career readiness, interaction with criminal justice systems, health and wellbeing, exposure to adversity and violence, and economic hardship contribute to this problem (Sun et al. 583). One requirement for receiving TANF benefits among families with young children is to participate in work-related activities for 20 hours per week (Sun et al. 583). Additionally, self-sufficiency is determined by recipients’ ability to perform their work without fear and improve their current lives. However, the welfare training programs have failed to consider how adverse situations such as violence, economic hardship, and health and well-being of the recipients interferes with their ability to work and reach self-sufficiency (Sun et al. 584). At least 43% of TANF beneficiaries have well documented types of disabilities that hinder them from working towards self-sufficiency (Sun et al. 585). Intimate partner violence is as high as 74 % among TANF eligible for welfare and TANF has failed to address this issue towards helping the affected reach self-sufficiency. Consequently, such limitations make welfare programs the lifestyle of the poor and hindering them from reaching self-sufficiency.