Making Welfare Work

Solutions for our broken safety net.

America spends around 2 trillion dollars a year on financial assistance to the poor and yet we still have extensive poverty. Curious! Every year the poor people I see in public are fatter and more dysfunctional than before and the number of homeless and drug addicts rises.

Something is profoundly wrong with this state of affairs. We’re spending massive resources on helping the “downtrodden” but everything keeps getting worse. Much of this has to do with how we distribute these resources.

When I lived in Oceanside, CA while serving in the Corps, I once watched as the shopper in front of me—an obese black woman (I would guess around 5’6” and 300lbs)—unloaded a shopping cart full of poptarts, pastries, soda, and sugary cereals onto the conveyor belt. Her toddler daughter played in the cart’s front seat. No father-figure was present and I didn’t see a wedding ring.

When the cashier was finished ringing her up, the woman whipped out what was clearly an EBT card and used it to pay for the whole high-fructose infused mess. This incident is a microcosm of social collapse

I, an employed white man, had become the literal sugar-daddy for this black (almost certainly) single-mom to eat absolute diabetes-inducing slop in order to “fight poverty.”

It would be infinitely better for me and that woman if this arrangement did not exist. That black woman would have a higher quality of life if she was 160lbs lighter, married to the biological father of her daughter, and paying her own bills. She would be happier, freer, and more independent. So would I.

All the leftwing blather in the world about social justice, anti-racism, and food deserts doesn’t change the fact that this woman was being actively harmed by the government giving her my money so she could (literally) feed her addictions.

America’ welfare system is failing because of insanity like this. If it were succeeding there would be fewer poor people and those that did exist would have a higher quality of life. Instead we have the opposite. But that could change. Here are some common sense reforms that would improve welfare both for recipients and taxpayers

The Federal Government Should have Nothing to do with Welfare

The clowns running our current regime actually shouldn’t be in charge of anything but especially welfare. For one, it is unconstitutional and with good reason. The federal government is supposed to primarily concenrate on protecting the nation’s borders, managing foreign affairs, and winning wars should they arise.

Virtually all domestic policy should be made at the local and state level. Welfare programs at the national level encourage waste, fraud, and abuse because there is so little accountability. For instance, the US Department of Agriculture has 105,000 employees and a $150 billion budget—80% of which is dedicated to giving out food aid. That money would be better tracked and spent locally. I can drive to the capital in Lansing and talk to my state rep far more easily than I can go to DC to talk to my congresscritter.

There is no reason for the feds to raise money from taxes for welfare, disability, and food stamps when the states can do it just as well.

Welfare Should Be Given Out By Juries

This is a big one. Instead of faceless bureaucrats in bland public buildings blindly handing out welfare, unemployment, disability, and food aid benefits in private, this aid should be given out by a jury. If someone wants money from the taxpayer for assistance he should make his case to the taxpayers! Simple.

Welfare juries should be public, too, and require poential recipients to come in person. These applicants should provide evidence of need and then make a public case for why they want assistance. Jury’s should have a set annual budget of aid to distribute and membership should be restricted to employed middle-class taxpayers who own real property and assets. Minimum annual salary for qualification should be something like 75k for a married couple with two kids. The superwealthy also shouldn’t get a say on these juries. Anyone making over $300,000 annually should also be excluded.

The goal is to keep the superwealthy from handing out benefits to the poor as a way to boost their political power and to also keep poor people from hooking each other up.

Welfare Recipients and Their Data Should be Public

This goes along with the pricniple that welfare should be public. Adding an element of potential public shame to receiving benefits is one way to keep the non-deserving from grifting off the system.

If welfare benefits are primarily going to obese, blue-haired, single-moms we the people have a right to know. Public data on welfare recipients would help the public keep the welfare jury accountable. It would also show exactly how much aid had been given to certain individuals over time and for what reason. This would help eliminate welfare fraud and encourage robust debate about what constitutes “deserving individuals.”

Welfare Benefits Should Only Be Given Out at 8:00 a.m.

Welfare should exist. People fall on hard times and I, for one, don’t want my fellow citizens to starve. People who are in need should get some help from society—having a basic “safety net” is a good thing. But those benefits should come with some discomfort so that those who receive benefits have an incentive to get off of them.

Nothing is better for a man’s dignity than independence. Work gives it to him. It is bad for most people to receive money without strings attached.

Forcing the unemployed to wake up at the same time as those who work for a living is uncomfortable but not cruel. It instills the kind of habits that make finding and keeping work easier.

If you are really in dire straits, then waking up at 8:00 a.m. to get free money isn’t an issue.

Randomized Drug Tests Should be a Condition of Receipt of Benefits

This should go without saying. No one who receives public benefits and no one in their household, should receive benefits if they are going to abuse drugs and alcohol. If people have the money to drink themselves into a stupor and get stoned, then they have enough money to buy needed supplies.

Receiving welfare should come with strings attached that promote healthy living and discipline. That goes for the dependents of recipients, too.

Public Assistance of Every Kind Should Come with Conditions—Namely, Work

The impoverished and unemployed should be required to do work as a condition of their relief. Even the obese and disabled should contribute something. Whether it is cleaning up grafiti, mowing lawns in parks, or managing a public garden—all benefits should come with the requirement to show up on time every day and do some form of labor.

Work is edifying for the soul. It brings dignity.

No Chips, Soda, or Candy While on Food Stamps, But Steak is Fine

Food aid should unilaterally exclude the most toxic and obesogenic foods. No chips, soda, pastries, frozen meals, or pop-tarts. I would rather the poor eat sirloin steak every day than eat food that actively saps their biological potential and energy. Breaking the connection between poverty and obesity should be one of the highest political priorities for local and state governments.

Nothing wrecks the quality of life of the poor like family dysfunction and obesity. The method of delivery for food aid can directly help eliminate the latter.

Food aid should prioritize giving people eggs, milk, cheese, meat, fruit, vegetables, and flour. If the poor want to eat cheap carbohydrates they should learn how to make them themselves. Those without kitchens should be fed in soup kitchens.

Priority for Benefits Should Go to True Down-on-Their-Luck Cases, Widows, and Intact Families

Welfare policy should incentivize healthy family formation and hard work. People who are down on their luck because they got laid off, a spouse died, or they simply don’t make enough money to feed their kids should be first in line for benefits. Married couples should receive more help than unmarried single women. Marriage is one of the best anti-poverty programs ever invented. The state should support and honor it for that reason.

Conclusion

This is by no means a comprehensive list of reforms, but it is the outline of a welfare policy that actually benefits the people who receive from it. Like I said above, I support some measure of welfare. Government exists to protect life, liberty, and property. Taking care of the truly destitute is part of that mission.

Welfare should be good for people. Public programs to help the poor should be used to promote healthy habits and hard work, not dysfunction and illness. Public assistance programs should be designed to get people off of public assistance.

We’re never going to solve poverty. It is simply part of the human condition. But we can be more prudent about how we construct and develop these efforts to aid the downtrodden. We should do it in such a way that benefits taxpayers and recipients alike.