by Donita Weddle

Created on: May 10, 2009   Last Updated: May 13, 2009

To determine if welfare is a help or hindrance, it may do us well to start with the definition of welfare. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, the word means "the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity, or, "aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need" or, "an agency or program through which such aid is distributed".

I'm assuming this question specifically references welfare defined as free money, medical, and food stamps given by a state welfare agency. Yet, no where is welfare defined as free money from the government to those who don't deserve it, without strings attached, paid for by those who work for a living.

Many Americans seem to jump to the conclusion that welfare is just that. It is easy to judge when we feel we are being robbed or we sense unfairness. The visualization of state family and child service agencies giving out free money to lazy, drug-using, or child-abusing recipients is common, but it is an illusion. I have been both a recipient and a giver of welfare.

Twenty years ago, when I had to quit my full-time job due to a high risk pregnancy, my husband and I received medical, cash, and food by a social and health services agency for the first time in our lives. That experience is nothing I would ever wish on anyone, but when I later got a job in a welfare office, it was undeniably the best job preparation I could have had. Few people want to be on welfare. It is often a humiliating experience. The money given is barely enough to survive on, let alone live.

The medical coverage itself can be good, but the attitude of many medical personnel working with those who have medical coupons is less than pleasant. When we were on welfare, we were a married, two-parent household with college degrees, non-drug users, and respectable citizens with no criminal record, who found ourselves jobless, without assets or medical coverage, and three small children. For that one year that we "used the system", welfare was definitely a help, not a hindrance. Without welfare, we would have been on the street.

For 15 years I have worked in various roles with situational and generational welfare recipients, from determining cash, medical, and food stamp eligibility to verifying medical incapacities to facilitating disability claims. I have heard it all, from applicants and clients and co-workers. Things like "If I were Mexican (or Russian, or Nigerian, or...) I'd get money" to "If

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>