It is time the citizens of the U.S. took a hard look at welfare ethics. Design flaws and unintended consequences of our federal welfare programs have created the following moral issues:
- We ignore the plight of the mentally ill.
- We put the middle class ahead of those in extreme poverty.
- We put the Poverty-Industrial Complex ahead of helping the poor.
- We discourage work and marriage.
- We enable alcoholism and drug addiction.
- We take away pride.
See the U.S. Welfare Programs Page for a summary of the United States’ welfare system.
We ignore the plight of the mentally ill
Have you ever asked yourself why it is that we spend billions on welfare and yet have so much homelessness? One of the main reasons is that many of the homeless are mentally ill or addicted to alcohol or drugs and lack the capacity to help themselves. They cannot navigate the welfare system or live independently in their own apartment or house. Our welfare system is inadequate to address their plight. To help, we must discern the problem and have the resources to deal with it. This issue plays out in the government policy called Housing First. There is room in our federal welfare system if we were to revise it to make more resources available for the chronically homeless. See the Poverty Gap Page.
For more information, see the Homelessness Page.
True compassion would not put those who cannot care for themselves outside the system.
We put the middle class ahead of those in extreme poverty
How many times do you see a child in poverty on your TV screen or in a news article with the caveat that our welfare system has left them unprotected? For over 50 years, such pictures have tugged at our heartstrings and generated a large, expensive welfare system. But how is it that after 50 years of government programs, we still have children unprotected? The answer is that we pay too much to the middle class and not enough to those in poverty – see the Poverty Gap page.
Over the years, we have used the poor to justify the expansion of welfare to the middle class. Such an error continues to this day. For example, the Coronavirus stimulus bill passed in March 2021 included huge dollars to the Child Tax Credit, Unemployment Insurance, EITC, rent subsidies, and other aid. But all that money won’t change the plight of those deep in poverty.
We can’t morally justify an expensive welfare system that misses those most in need. If we don’t get a handle on this, our TV screens and news reports will be filled for years to come with pictures of hungry children alongside reports of further growing federal deficits.
We put the Poverty-Industrial Complex ahead of helping the poor
Is the Poverty-Industrial Complex more concerned about their existence and growth than solving poverty? The Lifeline Program illustrates the problem. The FCC manages a nationwide database to track and administer a $9.25 monthly household phone subsidy. The FCC has joined the ranks of 7 other large federal agencies to administer welfare. In their case, it is a small subsidy per household but requires all the complexities of rules, compliance, forms, and administration. We have created a complex system including taxes on everyone’s phone, complex telecommunication company rules, unique qualification standards, and an FCC bureaucracy, all for $120 per year for qualifying households. It is an example of how the government uses welfare as an excuse to grow itself. It is an example of a government-run amok. The poverty threshold for a family of four is over $27,0000 a year. At this rate, it would take over 200 programs to move such a family out of poverty.
Why don’t we raise benefits in another program by $10 monthly and save everyone the hassle? Better yet, we should roll all our programs into a single cash payment to the poor – see the Welfare Reform Page.
Throughout our creation of welfare, we have addressed “Needs” in separate, independent programs. Needs include protein for infants (WIC), lunches for school children (Child Nutrition), and a phone per household (Lifeline). Most programs distribute their need “in-kind,” meaning the benefit is not paid in cash but instead is a voucher for food or a credit on your phone bill. This guarantees the benefit addresses the need. If cash were given as the benefit, the worry is that the poor may use the money for something other than the specific need being addressed. Only three of 13 welfare programs distribute cash – SSI, EITC, and TANF.
What has resulted is a complex welfare system with a “big brother” attitude of knowing what is best for the individual. It is time to rethink this position. It is time to treat the poor with dignity and let them run their own lives. They are scrappy survivors (See Bill Clinton Quote) and can stretch a dollar much further than the federal government. It is time we gave them that ability and treated them with respect and confidence.
Whether you believe in government solutions or not, allowing inefficient government is not in anyone’s interest. Our welfare system today consists of too many programs supplying too little cash with very little coordination but lots of bureaucracy. It is time we asked the hard question – are we creating government or solutions?
We discourage work and marriage
An unintended consequence of 13 uncoordinated welfare programs is that they discourage work and marriage. This is because increased wages or marriage can result in a disproportionate drop in welfare benefits. How this occurs is included on the Welfare Examples Page. This attribute of our welfare system is one reason many feel the system traps the poor in lives of dependency.
We can argue the dependency issue, but how do we justify a system that includes such attributes? Work and marriage are two stalwarts of the fight against poverty. We must have a system that encourages rather than discourages them.
We enable alcoholism and drug addiction
Our welfare system is too often used as a crutch to enable addiction to alcohol or drugs (AAD). When the basic necessities of life are covered by welfare, AAD is made easier and thereby enabled. As an example, Housing Assistance and SNAP sometimes provide the necessities of food and housing, and other resources are then spent on alcohol or drugs.
Attempting to help those with AAD is a noble and compassionate undertaking. We should not shy away from the task. A caring system would discern those with a problem through periodic testing or other means, such as coordination with law enforcement personnel and records. We must change our approach to those with AAD. Welfare dollars should go to solutions and not further destructive behavior. Ineffective or blind compassion is not true compassion. Lives are being lost while we look the other way and insist that privacy and our “desire not to judge” outweigh the destruction being wrought. How can we justify this with public money?
We take away pride
Perhaps the worst aspect of our welfare system is that it takes away the pride of the able poor. The able poor are those of sound body and mind. We take away pride from the able poor because our impersonal, formula-driven system too often doesn’t help the poor escape poverty. It makes lives more comfortable but doesn’t change lives. It is why we pay more and more each year, but the poverty level remains flat (See Poverty and Spending Over the Years). Our compassion is strong, but it is ineffective. Our system indirectly passes the message to the able poor that they are incapable of moving past their plight. We don’t mentor them, suffer with them, and work with them. We have turned what should be a caring, hand-holding, mentoring challenge into a hygienic formula with no thought or evaluation. The able poor are poor for a reason. We have decided as a society that it is better not to judge people; therefore, we should not discern the reason and help individuals overcome their challenges. It is a good thing our medical profession doesn’t function this way – discernment is the key to medicine. It should be the key to poverty work as well.
The fact of the matter is that we need the able poor to contribute to society – they are very important to the nation. They may even be the key to our nation’s future success. Imagine if the bulk of those in poverty today were more educated, had jobs, and some were business owners. What would the economic health of our nation be then? Unfortunately, most Americans do not have that view. Instead, they see the able poor as a burden to care for. The problem is that when we feel that way, so do they. Our approach indirectly tells the poor they are different and must be cared for. Can we continue to add more and more people to the welfare rolls and make fewer contributions to the nation’s production? The poor are incredibly important to us, and we must treat them that way.
The key to effective compassion is to ask the able poor to do more and more to improve their skills and ultimately lead independent lives, contributing more to the nation’s prosperity. We must turn our programs from “something for nothing” to “something for something.” Such a move tells the poor they are worth it to us – it says, “We need them, and they can do it.” Our nation has many needs, and the able poor can advance – more GEDs, child care, pre-school, job training, life skills, reading to youth, etc. This is not a call for the government to employ all of those in poverty but instead to move our welfare programs to more than just benefits for nothing. The poor are worth our effort, and they can help the nation.
Here is a great resource on how to help the poor.
“One Size Fits All” Welfare
Who is it that comes to mind when you think about someone in poverty or on welfare? For some, it is the homeless man sleeping on the street or perhaps a hungry child. For others, it could be a teenage mom living in a cycle of poverty. Still, others would envision a lazy person on a couch preferring to eat on someone else’s dime. They are all part of the poverty and welfare mix in America, and yet we structure poverty programs as if there is no difference. In our welfare system and many of our private charities, it is thought compassion should be indiscriminate. We try not to classify, discern, or judge. But to ignore the differences in those on welfare is to confine ourselves to ineffective compassion. Our “one size fits all” programs leave the mentally ill on the street without benefits while some with sound bodies and minds milk the system for all it is worth. In neither case is our compassion effective.
People in poverty:
Disabled Poor – Can’t provide for themselves
Physically disabled
Mentally ill
Addicted to alcohol or drugs (AAD)
Able Poor – Are capable of working and caring for themselves
Desire to work and strive to be independent
Desire not to work and instead live on the safety net
The disabled poor need care and programs that differ widely from the able poor. Any good welfare system must discern between low-income Americans and whether they are able or disabled. In general, the SSI program is the best example of a federal program that tries to define disability and provide funds to a third party for their care. AAD and mental illness present a particular problem for society, and in general, our 13 welfare programs are terribly ineffective at addressing these problems.
The able poor have been categorized as those who want to work versus those who do not. It is difficult to discern this attribute and probably not necessary to do so. Welfare should be changed so that all the able poor can contribute and help themselves and the nation. There is much to be done in our nation, and they can help! By stopping the “something for nothing” aspect of our welfare programs today and turning them into “something for something,” the able poor will start to contribute more to our nation. Improving themselves (GEDs, life skills, job training) or others (child care work, reading to youth) should be the quid pro quo of welfare benefits.