When
President Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty in the 1960s, he pledged
to eliminate poverty in America.
More
than five decades, several welfare programs, and $25 trillion later, the
welfare system has utterly failed the poor.
The
poverty rate remains mostly unchanged, and tens of millions of Americans are
dependent on government assistance.
Currently,
the United States spends about a trillion dollars a year on 80 different
federal, state, and local welfare programs.
About 40 million Americans are considered poor. If we divided that $1 trillion among those 40 million people, we could give each person approximately $25,000 a year, or $100,000 a year for a family of four.
We’re
clearly spending a lot of money, so why have we not ended poverty?
Our
welfare system discourages work. It discourages families from staying together.
And it encourages dependence on government.
In
other words, welfare keeps the poor poor.
In many cases, welfare has harmed the very people it was supposed to help, especially children.
Why
has this happened?
As
welfare benefits grew over the years, they increasingly served as a substitute
for a working parent.
As
the taxpayer became the family breadwinner, that encouraged many men to stop
upholding their responsibilities, leaving more and more women as heads of single-parent
households.
On
the other side of the coin, single mothers were discouraged from marrying the
fathers of their children because that reduced their benefits.
Sadly,
the cycle continues today as many children who grow up on welfare eventually
follow in their parents’ footsteps when they have families of their own.
So,
what do we do?
First,
we have to understand that the problem with the current system is that it discourages
work. Work is the fastest and most effective way to get out of poverty and
become prosperous.
Welfare
programs should be designed to offer temporary help while encouraging
able-bodied recipients to find work and become self-reliant.
In
states that have implemented time limits and welfare-to-work requirements,
recipients have received job training, found jobs, and increased their incomes
dramatically. They’ve also dropped off the welfare rolls.
Second,
we must continue to create the jobs that help recipients transition to work.
As
we’ve seen in just the past few years, cutting taxes on individuals and
businesses and cutting regulations that hinder business growth are the keys to
massive new job creation, high levels of employment, and increased wages for
workers.
Most
Americans want a social safety net that helps those who can’t help themselves
and they want to help the poor find meaningful work.
We’ve
learned through decades of experience that throwing more money at poverty
doesn’t end it. Temporary
assistance, jobs training, growing the economy, and promoting self-sufficiency
do.
As
we wage the war against poverty for the next generation, let’s fight smarter.
Source material can be found at this site.
