Let Me Explain Welfare Dependency

At first glance, poverty seems to be an easy problem to solve (until you think about it). Just give the poor support and money, right? They'll be able to get jobs and start supporting themselves, breaking the poverty cycle, right? 

That'll only last until they start relying on the welfare, and once that happens, everything goes wrong. 

Welfare dependency is a huge problem in the United States, and a lot of it comes from the fact that prices are rising, wages are staying the same, and housing is harder than ever to find. When a family needs welfare to be able to feed their kids, or when they're $100 short of being able to rent a roof over their heads, it's hard to advocate for cutting off the aid.

Which is why I'm not going to advocate for doing that.

But giving out the welfare poses its own problems. What happens when those who aren't truly poor start abusing the system (because trust me, they will)? What happens when someone's on welfare  but doesn't seem motivated to find a job? What happens when all the money that's being spent on welfare goes into raising the national debt and spurring inflation that just raises costs even higher, making even more people need welfare?

That's welfare dependency. And it's a problem.

There's been a number of solutions proposed over the years for welfare dependency. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act, for example, instituted work requirements for many types of welfare, with limited exceptions. To get welfare, you had to be looking for a job or participating in some sort of job training or education.

That's mostly stayed the same over the years, but more and more exceptions are now being granted to people who've found loopholes and ways to abuse the system. That's what's causing welfare dependency.

Another problem is that those on welfare don't really have an incentive to find a high-paying job. They'll do just enough to meet the requirements (go to a community college continuously without ever getting an associate's degree), and keep being on welfare. The reason is simple math:

Let's say, for example, someone doesn't have a job, and welfare gives them a certain amount of money per year. If they get a job that's above the maximum income for welfare, they'll lose that welfare money. And because most of the jobs they can get offer less of a salary than the welfare money itself, getting a job is actually financially counterproductive for these people. So they stay on welfare.

The solution is to first, make the requirements stricter. Someone can't lie or loophole their way out of a requirement if we remove many of the loopholes in the first place. While making the system stricter sounds harsh, the fact is that the more we spend on welfare, the worse we make it for everyone else. People just above the poverty line won't be able to afford increasing costs because of all the spending, and that just drives more people into the system.

Second, we need to make sure that getting a job isn't a financially terrible decision for these people. We need to make a phase-out system instead of a hard cutoff. Once someone starts making above a certain income, we can reduce the welfare payment by just enough so that getting a job is still a financial gain (instead of cutting off all welfare). If we incentivize them to actually get working, then once they can support themselves, they won't need any welfare anymore.

Third, we need to stop spending welfare money on drug-addicted homeless people who get afforded special treatment by welfare officers. These people need to get a wake-up call. If someone's in poverty because of circumstances outside their control, that's not their fault. But if they're in poverty because they're addicted to drugs and refuse to get a job, then we need to cut off the support, because we know that it's not going to help. They're going to abuse it.

All of these changes also fix the spiral of welfare spending. The less we spend on welfare (and the less we spend in general), the less we'll be driving up costs and putting people into poverty. If the poor people that are actually trying have to struggle every month to make ends meet, then the government shouldn't be frittering money away on causes that will only hurt them further.

Let's fix it.