Welfare Reformation
Welfare ReformationBy: Susan Stephens
{TITLE} �This week we offered a plan to end welfare as we know it�a plan that will encourage personality and help strengthen our families through tougher child support, more education and training, and an absolute requirement to go to work after a period of time.� -Bill Clinton, radio address, 6/18/94 The welfare system is in deep distress. From the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the current reigning of Bill Clinton, many a bills have been brought for to reform it. Originally, Roosevelt established the system as a type of government stripend to financially challenged individuals; however, it was not intended to act as a dependent income for them (Tucker 45). Even though many changes have been made over the past three years, it has not made much of an impact on the problems at hand (Pear). Officials discovered that many welfare recipients misuse the benefits. Studies have shown that the welfare system should begin by providing job placement, ending benefits for illegitimacy, and educating the young. First, the aspect of job placement is directly related to the misuse of welfare. In order to succeed at rising employment rates, current wages have to increase dramatically. A welfare check ranges form $5.53 to $17.50 an hour; in a like manner, minimum wage is less than an hourly welfare check (Tilly 8). People desire the higher money of a welfare check to that of a low-paying job (Tweedie 117; Tanner 18). This dependency on receiving the check causes many problems not just with the current generation, but future generations will also be similarly affected. These children are acquiring the habits of their parent or parents, thus creating a permanent underclass (Tucker 45). Economic incentives for staying on welfare should be abolished. People should no longer be allowed to remain on the system for extended periods of time. In accordance with the lesser incentives, the government should place more emphasis on raising the current hourly wage (Haskins 126). Most importantly, the government needs to portray a working world in which job training is not only the standard, but also the required (Tanner 17). Providing jobs with training not only educates the person, but also supplies him or her with opportunities to acquire a better paying job with a future (Willis 4). This training would not just teach skills, but it would make job development workers move more people into the mainstream (Garr 193). In Wisconsin, Republican legislators have devised a method of reform called W-2 Wisconsin Works. W-2 is a work program that would require all recipients over eighteen to work for cash assistance (Tweedie 117). Many welfare recipients are often stereotyped as lazy; moreover, these recipients need to take charge of their lives (Leavitt 22). They need to realize that they are capable of doing competent work. They have to compete to prosper. Second, illegitimacy needs to be curbed by stopping aid to promiscuous mothers who continue to have out-of-wedlock pregnancies. The establishment of anti-illegitimacy policies is...
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