Poverty in America has many causes.. in recent years people who had worked for decades at the same companies have been forced out of work, robbed of their pensions, and now have a difficult time finding anything that will pay the bills. Many people who find themselves being foreclosed on were not living beyond their means.. until they were laid off. Which is something that can happen to anyone without warning. Jobs today are more scarce than they've been in a long time, if you're older, inexperienced at other things, or even over qualified, getting any sort of meaningful employment can seem impossible. For this reason we have unemployment benefits. Others constantly stuggle to remain employeed thoughtout their entire lives, be it for lack of education, a disability, a criminal record, or sadly still in some cases, simply their ethnicity. These people may find themselves needing a helping hand from the government more often simply to survive. That being said, yes there are people who take unfair advantage of the system. This is true all over the world. The thought of completely doing away with government assistance would likely result in some less than positive consequences such as increased crime and a general societal decline with more and more people finding themselves homeless and desperate. I do think that there are a number of ways the system could be changed to prevent such fraud. Food stamps for example should be done away with, replaced with vouchers to collect necessary basic foodstuffs and hygiene items from distributions centers, not for use as money at commercial retailers. Things such as mandatory drug screenings should be in place for people who remain on government assistance for extended periods so that those with problems can be identified and required to enter programs or risk losing their benefits. Situations with women having "walfare babies" solely for the purpose of getting more benefits could be controlled by simply placing an upper limit on payouts so it doesn't benefit to have more children. There is no question that the system is flawed in the US. Some truly needy are denied benefits while others are handed virtual blank checks and live completely free off the system.
Interesting but I can't seem to agree with your first example. In order for me to agree with it I'd have to believe that people are naturally lazy and don't want to work or improve their standing in the world. Sure some people are but the majority of people would take that chance to get off welfare and into the workforce for a number of reasons. 1. a few thousand more a year can greatly increase anyone's well being. 2. having a job increases one's self worth 3. Most importantly I think, we're social animals. Being at home day after day doing nothing but getting money gets boring quickly. People got to work to be around other people Again this is really just my opinion of the majority of people.
“The principles underlying the welfare trap ultimately stem from the way people make decisions in light of personal valuation of their time and effort." So you honestly believe every individual is equally motivated and ambitious as you are even when the government will penalize you for working by taxing you more? What about high school dropouts? Would you consider them all motivated and ambitious as you? The Detroit City Schools dropout rate is 75%. I've definitely seen people who do not value hard work and are satisfied to do nothing - And that's okay. They are free to do as they wish as long as I don't have to pay their bills. It's really all about incentives what motivates people. Who would wake up every morning and go to work for a paycheck if they could stay home and collect almost the same amount doing nothing - especially if the government takes a big chunk of your take home pay? What's the motivation to better yourself in that case?
