Its time for a change | Teen Ink

Its time for a change

May 29, 2014
By reagans_bicep BRONZE, Tucson, Arizona
reagans_bicep BRONZE, Tucson, Arizona
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Welfare is the provision of a minimal level of well-being and social support for all citizens. In most developed countries welfare is largely provided by the government. Basically the government gives tax-payers money to a person refusing to get a job. I think its time for a change though, no more standing by while these people take our well deserved pay checks.

Welfare is a political topic that can and has sparked many debates. But I am not afraid to speak up to this montrosety we call “aid.” Here are the numbers (1-1-14); there are 12.8 million americans on welfare, 46.7 million on food stamps, 4.1% of population is on welfare, $131.9 billion of tax payers money was spent on welfare, someone on welfare can have a job that pays $1 thousand a month and still collect, in 39 states welfare pays more than a $8/hr job (Arizona), in 6 states welfare pays more than a $12/hr job, in 8 states welfare pays more than a teachers salary, and 26.9% are on welfare from 2-5 years.

Oh welfare, that dreadful word. “Welfares Purpose, should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existance” (Ronald Reagan). The reason welfare doesn’t work is, someone is sitting on the couch 15 hours a day, and getting a monthly check, with free food too. Let me break it down for you. If your parents give you $20 a week for doing nothing, you would like that. But if they tell you, if you do the dishes or laundry, we are no longer going to give you the $20. That is why welfare doesn’t work. People getting a paycheck for doing nothing every month know that, the moment they get a job, that free money stops coming in, and odds are, that job pays less than welfare. “You cannot help men permently by for them what they could do and should do for themselves” (Abraham Lincoln).

It is time for a overhall to wellfare, we need to start by making the ‘rewards’ of welfare, become punishments! Okay… maybe not that drastict, but we need to definetly decrease the benefits, if your on welfare, and you get paid more than someone with a job, why would you want a job? You wouldn’t. We also need to implicate stricter means of acquiring welfare. Make sure that welfare is not that easy to come across than getting a job, in other words; it should be easier to get a job than to get welfare.

It is time that more speak up about the harm that welfare is causing this country. It may come in 2016, it may not. But wheahter it does or doesn’t, we as a nation deserve better, and it all starts with the little things, like welfare.
“We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added. (Ronald Reagan)



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