OK, I think I should make one thing clear. I don’t think that the majority of mothers on welfare are “popping them out” for the sake of the check, or that the majority of welfare recipients are lazy.
My argument is that the way the welfare system is administered, it, whether by design or unfortunate accident, seems to favor those who are indolent or have made irresponsible choices. By making the process of applying for/receiving aid so complicated, and by making income requirements for eligibility artificially low (in areas where the cost of living is extremely high, the true cost of apartment rent, for example, is not taken into account when considering eligibility), the “system” makes it extremely difficult for people who are working but can’t seem to make ends meet, people who are underemployed and seeking to better themselves by seeking education or job training, or the unemployed who are genuinely seeking employment and need to spend those hours that would be otherwise spent “pounding the pavement”, or on the phone or online seeking a job, sitting in an office waiting their turn to talk to a worker to get much-needed assistance. Thus, the people who have nothing better to do than sit in a waiting room, then go across town to sit in another waiting room are the ones who have the easiest time getting aid. Someone who is willing to “work” four or five days a month doing this can get aid fairly easily, compared to someone who has responsibilities such as work or school to meet.
I certainly wouldn’t begrudge a mother who has been abandoned by the father of her children financial assistance to feed and clothe them, but the way the system is set up, it rewards irresponsibility and indolence. A working single mother probably doesn’t have time available to take off work in order to apply for food stamps and utility assistance. Right now in Nevada, you have to wait for hours to fill in an application, then stand in line to set up an appointment two weeks later to talk to a worker. My mom was turned down for food stamps because she arrived on time for her appointment, accidentally got in the wrong line to turn in her paperwork, had to go wait in another line, which made her “late”, even though she had arrived in plenty of time, and the worker put her down as a “no-show”. Had she been working a low-wage job at the time, she would have had to reschedule and then take a second day off work that month to go back to the food stamp office.
Fortunately, she has a reasonably good-paying job now (hope she keeps it, Las Vegas is the Land of the 89-Days Wonder), so our financial situation has improved enough that, aside from my county medical card, we don’t need public aid.
