Let's say you were approached by ten poor people who needed your help. You happen to have $100 extra dollars to help them out. Eight of those people were honest, hard-working, and have come on rough times through no fault of their own. Some have been laid off, are looking for work, maybe they come from a difficult background and are trying to claw their way out, maybe medical expenses got the best of them, or whatever. Some have a job, work hard, but still find themselves in poverty. They have children who need adequate meals, clothes, and opportunities the parents never had. They are truly worthy of your support. The other two are free-loaders. They look for a job, but not seriously. They would use some of your money for necessities, but some of it would go to things like an Xbox or a new TV or an iPod.
In this hypothetical situation, if you had an all or nothing choice, you either give the money to them all or none at all, what would do? Should you send a message to the two loafers at the expense of those that really need help or do you give to the two loafers incidentially so you can help the other eight? For me, the answer is clear cut, but for others it presents a serious dilemma.
Too many Americans project their justified distaste towards that minority of welfare abusers onto the majority that need help and are worthy of our support in order to demonize those on welfare and the system itself. Too many Americans view poverty as an indication of personal failures. This is not the case. What drives people to poverty and public assistance are low wages and lack of education.
Most families on the welfare system use it for a temporary period of time. About half are leave the system within a year, about 70% leave within two years, and about 90% leave within five years. Less then half come back within a year, but about 70% will use welfare again within five years. What this means is that a small fraction of welfare recipients are long-term cases. Those that come back will again remain on the welfare list temporarily. There is a small percentage of people that remain on welfare for extended periods of time, sometimes up to 25 years. A good percentage of welfare users are underemployed, meaning they have part time jobs but would rather have full time jobs.
Of course the system is imperfect and can be improved upon. Finding ways to weed out the abusers has proved difficult. The best welfare system is one that requires recipients to put in some amount of work for the benefits and also provides education and counseling to help people gain skills and motivation needed to get out of the system. But such programs are not needed for the majority of welfare recipients. The majority stay in the system temporarily, have a desire to work and a skill that makes them employable, and look for and find jobs.
Contrary to the empirical evidence to the contrary, human nature is to make conclusions based on personal experience. They see an abuser of the system who openly flouts his or her misappropriation and conclude that that must be the norm. They do not see, or ignore as contrary to their strongly emotional reaction to the abuser, the larger majority who hide the fact, out of pride, that they are receiving assistance.
The U-3 unemployment rate is at 8.5%. U-3 measures those unemployed and looking for employment. The U-6 unemployment rate is 15.6%. U-6 includes those who are underemployed (they are looking for a job but have taken a part time job or lower paying job as a temporary stop-gap) and those that have looked for a job but have temporarily given up looking. These are the highest numbers in decades. The economy has lost 5.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.
Do all of these people that qualify for welfare assistance deserve what they got handed to them? Are they just lazy and that's why they lost their jobs? This recession and all those lost jobs were caused by greedy, immoral financial executives who produce nothing of worth for society, who toy with our life savings and futures by creating secondary and tertiary markets based on speculation and, again, greed. The wealthy are getting wealthier at the expense of the working class. And yet our ire is pointed at the welfare system? The poor are supporting the lifestyles of the rich and when that system creates situations of poverty we blame the poor.
And yet only about 1 or 2 percent our total federal, state, and local budgets goes to welfare programs. We complain that welfare is a drag on our economy and ability for national growth, and yet just tiniest percentage of our tax burden goes to helping those unprivileged families. The risk is far greater that we will start seeing abhorrent slums, abject poverty, and systemic hunger than that we will see a "Nanny-state" which encourages widespread laziness and a general sense of entitlement.
Don't forget, too, that the middle and upper classes get forms of welfare, as well. We get things like tax breaks for owning a home, we get heavily subsidized student loans and Pell grants for going to college, we get lower tax rates on capital gains, we get more benefit out of the infrastructure because we can afford to live farther out in the suburbs and commute longer distances, and so on.
We can't blame all of our problems on society in general but we can pinpoint serious flaws in the hopes of improving them. Welfare, of course, isn't the final answer, for that we should strengthen and equalize our education system so that every person is given a quality, free education that provide real opportunities for success. Welfare is, however, a necessary link for many families between jobs or going through a difficult periods in their lives.
We are not islands unto ourselves. We are one nation and the successes or failures of some reflect on and affirmatively impact everyone else. The greatest nations are those that respect all law-abiding citizens, mete a measure of dignity to each, and do not simply leave the poor behind.
Coming up next will be "Supporting the Welfare System, Part II: The Religious/Moral Argument," wherein I preach.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar