Welfare includes SNAP/food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid,
Temporary Assistance
for Need Families (TANF), Women, Infants and Children (WIC), tax
credits for working families, and Social Security, and other programs.
Actually those same people that say welfare needs to be cut, do not
realize that they also may be benefiting from welfare/social programs.
The most famous myth about welfare may be the one begun by Ronald Reagan
of the "Welfare Queen", but she didn't exist. Even if there was such a
person that existed, this isn't the reality of welfare recipients. There
is a notion that poor people that receive welfare are abusing the
system by committing fraud when it is actually the wealthiest people
that commit the most fraud.
Likewise, there is a growing popular opinion among Republican
conservatives to drug test welfare recipients because it is believed
that all poor people do drugs. Although the research has proven that
only a few percentage of recipients are using drugs, so it is too costly
to require everyone to be tested. For example, in July of 2014,
Tennessee began testing their welfare applicants, showing that 1-in-800
people that were tested showed positive for "illegal" drugs. And Florida
applicants that showed positive was a meager 2.6% of applicants. Once
again, drug testing costs taxpayers much more money than it saves.
Furthermore, this myth comes from the belief that people are poor
because they are addicts or alcoholics. But alcoholism and addiction are
not limited to poor people because using drugs is found at all levels
of the society. Any welfare recipients on drugs may be the most needy
when those on drugs may be suffering more from other life issues where
welfare could alleviate stress or pain. Alcoholism and drug addiction
are mostly likely the result of the stresses of poverty, but again
addiction often depends on availability so addictions of poor people are
limited by income while rich people probably do use more (expensive)
drugs. This rhetoric about illegal and legal drugs in an age of
marijuana legalization and Big Pharma needs to continue to be
challenged.
There are many additional myths about welfare recipients that are listed
further. Often these myths come from racist attitudes like Reagan's
Welfare Queen. One being that undocumented immigrants are all on
welfare, when in fact they are not eligible for any benefits except
emergency medical care (which may be reversed now under the new
administration.) Also, the Social Security Administration says that even
though half to
three-quarters of undocumented immigrants pay
taxes (billions in Social Security taxes),
they will never see a penny of these benefits. Approximately 40% of food
stamp recipients are white; and 30% of TANF recipients are white, 30%
Latino, 30% are Black, with other racial groups making up the remaining
10% of recipients.
One other myth is that welfare/social programs have failed because
poverty and homelessness have grown in spite of the trillions of dollars
provided to the poor. This is not true. The fact is that these programs
have succeeded in getting people out of poverty and homelessness. When
Lyndon Johnson began the "Great society" program, the increased welfare
payments reduced poverty from 20 in the 1950s to 12% of the population
by the end of the 1960s. Whoopi Goldberg, Carol Burnett, six members of
Congress, Bill Clinton and many other successful people used welfare
when they were in poverty. Of course there is a growing number of people
on food stamps but that was a reaction to the Great Recession.
Another myth is that taxes coming from working class Americans is all
going to welfare. While it may be true that working class Americans pay
more in taxes than the rich, but most people don't realize that the US
budget spends half on the military, meaning that the majority of
American's taxes is going to funding war. Welfare programs like TANF and
food stamps (which are the the largest items of the welfare budget),
only account for 1-2% of the US federal budget. What is actually
financially burdening Americans is the fact that welfare/social programs
are getting cut while more money (especially now under Trump) goes to
the military, including the the rising percentage of American wealth
gravitating to the top 1% of the population. While there is also a
notion that welfare recipients do not work, there is also a belief that
they are lazy. But even if a parent receiving welfare for their children
did not have a paying job, being a parent in itself is work. Moreover,
many people who work full-time are eligible for welfare because those
jobs are low-paying wage like those at Wal-mart. The majority of people
on welfare have been in and out of the work force, returning to the
welfare rolls when they lost their job or there was an illness,
accident, house fire, or other crisis.
The people I knew that got food stamps was a man who used them for a
year, and then stopped when he got two jobs at Lowes and Dominos. Now he
barely sleeps and all of his money goes to his phone for work, his car
he uses for work and could not get a tax credit for using for delivering
pizza, insurance for the car and health, and paying off of his car
loan. A
woman I know that was on food stamps because she was working and going
to school and
had a baby. Another woman I know that is on food stamps currently is my
grandmother, and her church friends that are her age, also get food
stamps. Another woman on food stamps that I know, works in construction
and grows food while raising three kids with a husband that works under
the table. Other people I know on food stamps is a couple that both work
and have a baby, but they are low paying jobs because of the skill
level which is related to their different abilities. This is an aspect
government officials forget: that differently abled people exist and may
not have the ability to work. Even a middle class family that works but
has a child that is differently abled may not be able to work, and so
they need extra money for their care. My brother who is diagnosed with
Autism may never work and he's never been on food stamps but may need to
in the future.
For years I was living off of savings after I quit my job to start a
food forest garden. And it wasn't until someone suggested I get on food
stamps that I ever considered that option. When I did, I felt shamed by
the experience when I applied. There were so many personal questions
that I felt uncomfortable and I felt like I was revealing a lot about
myself not just to one person but the entire office because anyone could
see me in the interview. Other people I talked to felt the same. But it
was worth it when I was able to buy food for myself while I went back
to college and I was able to use food stamps to buy fruit trees and
vegetable plants and seeds. When I was on food stamps, my budget was $5 a
day for myself equating to $1.50 per meal if I ate three meals a day. I
usually
ran out of food stamps by the third week of the month. In other words,
the food stamps provided is not even adequate enough for one person let
alone a family. I have heard this rhetoric over-and-over (mostly from
Republicans) that will say that women just have more children so they
can receive more welfare, when in reality a family only receives $70 per
month for each additional child. You cannot raise one child on $70 a
month!
These government politicians do not believe that there are people that
actually live without running water, heat, a proper bed. The extent of
poverty isn't just lack of food. Hell, even I grew up in my teens
without a bed. I slept on the floor with siblings or shared a bed with
my parents. I grew up with mold all over the walls or ceiling in
bathrooms, or holes in the ceiling or floor. I knew a family that lived
in their trailer without electric, internet, and plumbing for a year
before they could get help. This is the striking contrast to growing gap
between the rich and poor. There are 157 billionaires and about 2
million millionaire while there is 100 million homeless people (15%
living in poverty in the US.) This is also insulting to the poor when
you consider the food wasted in America, and yet Americans spend 5
billion dollars per year on diets to lower their caloric intake. In the
US, the wealthiest 1% of all households claim 40% of all personal
wealth; the wealthiest 20% of households in the US receive over 50% of
all income, whereas the poorest 20% receive less than 5% of all income.
If you want to decrease taxes, then take it out of the military and
prison industrial complex.What often does not come up in the
conversation by the government officials that justify cutting welfare
because of the myths listed, is that those who need welfare programs
often don't have access to them.Why don't those same government
officials bring up this issue of access? It's because they have set up
the system to make it hard for anyone to get access with the many rules
and leaps and bounds you have to take to get them. Because I received
food stamps, I know what the rules were: and one of those was that I had
to have an address, an ID, SSN, and I had to have a written statement
from someone outside of my family to prove that I had no income. A
homeless person alone in this world with no way to update their ID is
not even eligible for food stamps. The bottom line is: do not let people
continue to propagate myths about welfare, myths about
the poor, and do not let your government officials use tactics to take
away help from the poor in order to justify tax breaks for the rich.
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