by Tara Rijon

Created on: February 17, 2010

The word “welfare” is often associated with a lower class of people, perhaps because it was established during the 1930’s in an effort to help the impoverished during the Great Depression.  Initiated as a system that would provide temporary assistance to those in need, it has been overused, abused, and in many cases, turned into a family tradition.

As a retired welfare worker I have witnessed the changing laws and the array of people that have benefited from them.   According to the old regulations, as long as a woman continued to have children, she would continue to watch her welfare check grow.   I had one client who received benefits for thirteen children (with eleven absent fathers) while her teenage daughter was already pregnant with her first child and applying for benefits.  In some instances, there were daughters, mother and grandmothers all receiving checks.  The system failed to make anyone responsible.

In the 80’s, one merely needed to fill out an application, attend an interview and sit back and receive their checks every month.  Quality control meant that benefits were issued correctly according to the information provided on the application.  Fraud was something that was only investigated if an anonymous call was received, and benefits continued until the youngest child turned eighteen.  There was no monitoring, no incentive and no changing the mindset of recipients.

In 1996 President Clinton signed the “Welfare Reform Act“ and welfare took a sudden change.  Once a woman applied for benefits she would be “locked in” and would no longer be able to add additional children to her grant.  This caused a great deal of dismay among the recipients, but did nothing to solve the problem.  The bill also gave the states control over their own welfare systems, which has resulted in a wide variety of differences being displayed.

Despite the many changes over the years, the welfare system still does nothing to make the client responsible.  They have cut back the benefits (Arizona recently reduced their allotments by 10% due to budget cuts) and have placed a cap on receiving them, but nothing is being done to educate the client for a  future without welfare.  While most states require completion of some type of jobs program, many of them lack the instruction or monitoring that clients need to be successful in the long term, and many of

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