As most people well know, times are getting tougher and holding down a job is getting even tougher. Sadly, a great many people are forced to apply for food stamps/welfare because of not being able to feed their families or not making enough to feed their families. Each year more than 10,000 people are forced on welfare because of not being able to keep a job let alone find an employer that’ll hire them for one. Unfortunately, common people are not the only ones to suffer from this pandemic outbreak; fresh out of college graduates are too. Generally, most college graduates usually find themselves returning to their hometown after graduation because of the lack of employment opportunities in the town in which they went to college. College students are the second group of people to end up on food stamps while they are looking for work in their chosen field of study/major or their minor, and the number is quite high. 67% of college graduates right out of college go on welfare within the 3 months of graduating because of the competitiveness of the job market. Now, the question remains, should long term welfare recipients have a deadline date, the answer is absolutely not. Most government officials think that people are wasting their generosity i.e. food stamps/welfare, but the truth is far less designed. People living in poverty should never be given a deadline date because they count on these benefits to feed their families, and helping them find long term work should be a priority. Those in poverty are the ones who are in need of help, and those kinds of people are not guilty of abusing the system; if the government should be helping anyone, it is the poverty-stricken.
Interesting enough, there are more non-working people than there are working people, and the number is increasing by the day. There is probably a few people taking advantage of the system, but if the government was going to do a scan on everyone they think that is abusing the system, they run the risk of cutting off someone who really needs these benefits and possibly getting into legal trouble. According to the article titled US Welfare System-Help for US Citizens, a line in the article stated the following, fortunately the public support for reforming welfare is evident that even as cynical as we have become, most still feel some type of obligation to help poorer families. That is what it is all about, helping out poorer families who have neither a job nor a way to feed their families. People helping people is what welfare is all about, and if there is concern for abuse of the system then welfare can step up their efforts to help people get long term work so the concern is not a concern at all. For example, providing a mandatory class that people should go to in order to weed out the ones that are just taking advantage of the system; absence should be counted harshly. This will give the government some people in the aspect that they are getting something back for helping people. People who really need these benefits are omnipresent, and are usually trying to figure out they can make the little bit of money that they have left from paying bills go toward buying food. Welfare recipients should not have a deadline because a lot of these recipients are parents with children under the age of 10 that need their nutrition, that reason alone is more than enough for welfare to see how important it is to help the poverty stricken. There are 100s of welfare recipients that are receiving welfare aid because of their living in poverty, a lot of these people cannot really help their situation which becomes a cause of concern for people close to them. The government’s goal is to help welfare recipients find long term work, and provide them with all the help they need until they find long term which is practical because there are a lot of people who still need these benefits.
Preventing abuse of the system is definitely a priority because people are quick to take something for free without having to work for it, and never look for a job or anything to supplement what they have already. Deadlines are necessary somewhat because those who get food stamps need to be reminded that the free help is not always going to be free, and they can do their part by trying to do something that shows that they are trying to at least find a job. As I previously mentioned, taking the welfare job training class which will put people on the fast track to getting a job or the job that they want. Another thing that the government can do to prevent people from possibly abusing the system is by interning at a place nearby by talking to the manager to see about getting a part time job. There are some that complain that it is not fair for people on welfare to get so much while those who work get so little, and the help that they can barely afford to get because they are making too much money. Sadly, this is another example of someone who needs the benefits, but cannot get them. There are ways that welfare can help those who need it, and those who are trying to get it; it does not have to necessarily be about abuse of the system. On average, those who are working good jobs still have trouble feeding their families, 20% of those making $65,000 and below are the ones in dire need of welfare benefits because of the lack of funds left over to feed their children. If welfare is concerned about people taking advantage of their system then they should work to get the impoverished people jobs, and along with receiving food stamps, the recipient has to show proof that they are following the requirements in order to get the benefits that they applied for. In this way, welfare only awards those benefits to people who are deserving of them, and for those that do this should not have a deadline because they are following the guidelines that they were given. Anyone can take advantage of a freebie, but there are also ways of making people prove that they are deserving of the very freebie that they have been granted.
Works Cited Page
"US Welfare System-Help for US Citizen." Applying for Welfare. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr 2014.
