Regulate the Welfare Abuse
study shows how people on welfare are still abusing the system even with the reforms that have been activated and put into effect.
To show personal experience or occurrence with this situation would be an example my grandparents informed me of. My grandparents have a dear friend that lives next door to a woman who is collecting welfare. The row home she lives in with her three children and her boyfriends rents for approximately 00. per month. But being that she is on government assistance, she only pays . a month. This lady does not hold a job and also gets food stamps and subsidized electric. She receives money from the government for her three sons. Critics on the opposing side may say that she might not have the skills to work. This is a totally false statement. It is a personally known fact that if someone is looking for a job that is on welfare the government will provide training and help that person find a job. This is a known fact because it has happened to my second cousins wife before they got married. The most ridiculous part about the welfare program is that the government is willing to provide help for people that are capable of working but are just too lazy to work. A more irritating situation is when a honest working family becomes a victim to hard, unfortunate times and requires assistance from the government but don’t qualify to receive the help. Here is an example from the news; a father and mother are both working two jobs to make ends meet, they have a son who has a chronic illness that can not be treated because they don’t have the money for pay for it. The government would not help this family in any way, so the married couple had to get a legal divorce so that they could say their son lives with and is supported by a single mother and she doesn’t have enough money to pay for the bill. By the mother being single and having a child she was able to receive the health care. This situation completely makes no sense. Basically what the government is doing is allowing people to cheat the system just so their child can receive treatment. What is wrong with this picture? You would think that the government would be willing to help the family instead of putting them on Medicare which would go against their ultimate goal of decreasing the governments’ responsibility for yet another dependent family. The government needs to re-evaluate and enforce their government assistance system.
In Clinton’s reform, “PRWORA permitted chemical drug testing. This allowed states to deny benefits to adults convicted of drug felonies, and allowed states to terminate benefits to illicit drug-using women who violated program requirements or who simply failed to find employment” (Pollack 2024). From the beginning of this reform, some states began to implement their state welfare programs to help illicit drug and alcohol abusers to receive treatment to able them entry into the work force. The state of California developed the “Cal-WORKS” program where “each county receives a portion of a 63.5 million dollar funding pool designed to help persons receiving welfare benefits remove alcohol and drug-related barriers to employment” (“California Counties” 1). Not only is the state of California trying to help drug abusers, but the “Governor of Illinois, Jim Edgar has proposed to reduce welfare program spending by 2.5 percent in the states fiscal year that begins July 1. He also is suggesting setting aside 3 million dollars in new money toward the establishment of a drug screening and assessment program for welfare beneficiaries” (“Illinois Considers” 4). If Edgar’s proposal is approved, the state will require welfare recipients who have substance abuse problems to undergo treatment. The good part, state officials believe that beneficiaries will get off the public assistance treadmill and provide for themselves. The bad part would be for those beneficiaries who would have their benefits gradually decrease and have no intentions to cooperate with the rehab programs.
Welfare programs have proven beneficial in helping people and families that are in need. Because of the program’s abuse, new state regulations were needed. Statistics show that the reform program implemented by Bill Clinton back in 1996 is working. It has succeeded in reducing the number of families and people on assistance. A quote from the Truman Show states, “we except the reality of the world who which we are presented.” This phrase underlines what sociologist call agents of socialization. The book definition for agents of socialization is groups or social contexts in which significant processes of socialization occur.” There are two types of socializations, the first is primary socialization which takes place in infancy and early childhood and is the most crucial period of culture learning. Children around the age