Are People Taking Advantage of Welfare? - Comments

Being on welfare equals getting the smallest amount of money that you need to survive. As someone who is going to get welfare from the end of summer due to severe depression that stops me from working or studying, I know exactly how little money you get. I get more when studying, even though 70% of that money are loans, and even that amount of money is just enough to get by while being able to spend some money on myself or on pleasures. When I get put on welfare I'll have to use part of the money that's meant for food on my cats. Not a lot of people would choose to mooch off of the gouvernment or system by just being lazy and get on welfare so they could sit at home and do nothing and still get money. Because that's what they'd be forced to do; nothing. When on welfare, your life isn't a rich picnic where you can just go out and do whatever you want and enjoy all the free money you get for doing nothing. You're barely scraping by. Most people who are on welfare would do anything to be able to get a good job or get accepted/afford a good education so they can later get a good job.

I feel this is a very poorly researched article, and feeds only a terrible stereotype which isn't accurate or reality based at all.

This is and will always be an extremely controversial debate in our country, and whatever other country that may have a similar system. However, I do agree with the first comment. It's not everybody that feeds off of the government. This sort of topic, like many, is a case by case topic, not something that should be spoken on broad spectrum. Although, I do believe that there are people that receive welfare, as I have known of people in this situation, who should be drug tested. I personally don't want my tax dollars to help fuel another person's addiction. Still, that's not everyone. So, try next time to not throw in all of your opinions. Facts are needed more than ever in politics, especially.

You must be quite a sociable person to personally know every single person on welfare in your city to know that " Most of the people on welfare are in good health and do almost next to nothing and get everything for free."
You had no sources to back up any claims you made whatsoever.

I think some of the previous commentors kinda over-reacted. I get your point though, I know some people who are on welfare and they don't have jobs, and don't work because hey, it's free money and they get by on it, oh, and they don't have to work. I don't think you assume or bought into a myth, because there are people out there who take advantage of welfare. I know them. I also agree they should buckle down and make tighter rules about who gets money and who doesn't.

I mean, I know a woman with 7 children, who doesn't have a job, her husband works hard hours at a bus station, and all their kid's are going to a provide school. They barely get by and all the kid's have hand-me-down's, yet they refuse to get welfare and yet they still make it. I think if more people had this kind of determination instead of looking to the government for free money, we'd have a lot less people on welfare. But yeah. those are my views.

Instead of saying "in my city" you should have just left yourself out of it and stated what city you were talking about. That way all of these facts could be cited.

No system will ever be perfect, and there will always people who cheat. But you can't just take away something that benefits so many people and keeps them from being homeless because of a few bad apples.

You just submitted an article that received heavily critical comments because you did no research and made offensive, judgmental statements... and you just did the same again. The overwhelming majority of welfare recipients are children, a demographic you didn't even mention. One in four children in America receive welfare. Surely you're not proposing a two year old should go out and get a job?

Additionally, your article perpetrates one of the most hateful welfare myths of all time- that poor people are lazy and don't want to work. Most poor people who receive government welfare, aside from unemployment, DO have jobs, and they DO work, they are just either underemployed or work at a minimum wage job that cannot pay the bills. When you take out the elderly people who cannot work, and children who cannot work, it's amazing how many people do work who are on welfare and still poor. An article like this doesn't help those people.... it makes things much worse by pitting people against them.

You also fail to mention that most people are on welfare temporarily, and instead you perpetrate the idea that there are people looking for a free ride to life. The average welfare payment to a family of four is something like $300.... no one stays on welfare for an easy life.