Send All Welfare Moms To Jail

This past weekend at a friend’s party, I became engaged in an interesting
conversation with a business man who was bemoaning about the so-called “great
life” of welfare moms: women receiving government assistance either in the
form of a government check or food stamps. In his words, “they get free
health insurance, nice government subsidized homes (known as Section 8 housing) for little to nothing, free day care for their children and food stamps.

As more and more people gathered to listen to the conversation, his anger
grew more intense and he opined how “these” women contributed to the decay of
our society. For god sake’s he exclaimed: “these women do nothing but sit at
home all day, watch television, won’t help their kids with homework or go to
their children's schools and often spend the government money on themselves rather than their kids. “Nope,” he snarled, “they get paid by us to do nothing but have
more kids that they refuse to take care of!”


Pretty soon the others, who had gathered, joined his battle cry. Some even
complained about how they have worked for several years and paid taxes
dutifully but have never been able to get government aid to help them pay for
health insurance, their kids daycare or receive food stamps to feed their
families when they needed extra help. Then out of no where someone stated:
welfare moms should be in jail because some of the stuff they do is downright
criminal.

While others laughed, I realized how much anger there is toward welfare moms
and the system for giving people a so called “free ride.” While I think to
some extent the anger is misplaced, the truth is I understand their concerns to some extent. There are many women on welfare for which government assistance is just a
transitional phase. They’ve lost their spouses, their jobs or they are
working moms who still fall below the poverty level and the government should
assist them.

Yet, the truth is there are plenty of other women who are second or third generation welfare recipients and have no expectation or desire to get a job or do more with their lives because government aid is their livelihood. For these individuals, government assistance is no longer support for the child but adult support, and it’s the latter group toward which I believe most of the anger is directed.

Even so, my only complaint with the crowd that had gathered to gripe about
the state of our country’s welfare system is that no one held the father’s
responsible for their behavior. The truth is many of these women are also
receiving welfare because a good deal of men have refused to step up and take
responsibility for their children so I personally believe the blame lies not
only with women but also with men and our society which rewards the wrong
type of behavior: that of something for nothing. I personally believe the
real problem with our government aid system is the absence of expectation.
Many people who receive government aid aren’t expected to do anything in
order to get or continue receiving the aid: not work or even go to school.
And as the saying goes, no one rises to low expectations.


So if we want something different than we need to change expectations. I
think the government should establish a transitional period (2-4 years)
whereby individuals in need of government aid can receive assistance. The
time period should be sufficient enough to enable individuals to build a
solid foundation to support their children so that they can get off aid.

After that period of time, anyone who wishes to continue receiving aid must earn it. This can be done by requiring individuals to perform government jobs, join the military and learn a trade or volunteer in high need areas such as schools, shelters, etc. for so many hours each year as a precondition to receiving aid.

Additionally, the system should do more to penalize fathers who don’t financially support their children. After all, if welfare moms should be in jail so should the fathers who’ve financially abandoned their children. After all, government aid is about providing assistance for the children and if both parties are failing to provide for their children, it’s only fair society treat them in the same manner.