I personally feel like I don't read enough on occurring problems in the United States, I tend to over hear the news or just hear some people randomly debate something that is going on but I never really sit down and read about things that in the long run can affect everyone living in this country, so I want to be able to be well informed on the matters of welfare debates and most importantly unemployment because over these past few weeks that I have been educating my self more and more about this subject I come to realize that 90% of the problem (in my eyes) is that people need jobs! if our economy could create good paying jobs for people maybe they wouldn't need to be on welfare to support their family. Although if you think even more outside the box I also realized that education is KEY to having a successful life, and that is another on going struggle for many Americans living in the U.S.
but anyway I came across this article in opposing view points where the author claims that ..

Globalization Increases U.S. Unemployment

"International trade agreements are not designed to benefit the United States, its people, its workers, or its future."





In the following viewpoint, Darren Weeks claims that America's pro-globalization policies are responsible for widespread unemployment in America. According to Weeks, economic treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement are a means for U.S. businesses to outsource jobs to nations where labor is cheap while laying off millions of better-paid Americans. He insists that globalization has not brought jobs to the United States but has instead destroyed U.S. manufacturing and lowered the standard of living of all working Americans. Weeks is the host of the "Govern America" talk and news show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, a radio and Internet operation.

 

 

MONEY its always about the money right? It seems that although the U.S. government creates programs such as Welfare, Unemployment, TANF (temporary assistance for needy families) and many more, they are also concerned with ways in which they can save money. Like I mentioned before and like this author is implying maybe the government should give people food stamps and an unemployment check but rather use up ALL those resourced to make more jobs !! its like that saying that says "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he will eat for a life time" I'm sure that the U.S government have a reason as to why they want to increase globalization but maybe they can just decrease many of the problems occurring in this country if they keep their industries in America.!!

Many can argue that if things are American built that they will increase the cost of living but imagine all the jobs that an American manufacturing can create perhaps the cost of living will go up but the minimum wage can also increase.  (Again I am the least informed and educated person to comment on these political points but these comments are coming from a person living in the U.S.)

 

http://0-ic.galegroup.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&u=uofcden&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010746206

 

Today I asked my self if some of the benefits that the government is offering are actually helping people out or are they just acting as incentives to make people want to be involved in the welfare system...

WILL EXTENDING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS GIVE INCENTIVES TO PROLONG UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS ?





I found this article where the authors actually believe that extending unemployment help will only make people want to stay unemployed rather than find a job...
"Increasing benefits can serve an important humanitar-ian aim among needy groups. However, there are those among the unemployed for whom such benefits can pro-vide reduced incentives towards seeking immediate em-ployment. Among these recipients, some may respond by not seeking employment at all. As shown above, investi-gators have sought to determine whether the number of those who become more selective is significant"

"As noted by many writers, increases in unemployment benefits can provide reduced incentives for the jobless to seek jobs. The job seeker may increase his overall qual-ity standards in demanding a new job, the Match-Quality Hypothesis. The seeker can, and does, become more se-lective. This, in turn, increases the duration of unem-ployment for those receiving benefits and, all other things given, increases the level of unemployment among those as well. Surprisingly, only one person with the MQH trait is needed to produce a slight bulge in unem-ployment duration, and hence in total unemployment. Available empirical studies provide evidence consistent with these predictions. In addition, these behavioral traits appear to be empirically valid regardless of the culture of the work force. "
This makes sense because if you think about it if they benefits keep raising the amount that is given to the unemployed, there aren't going to be many jobs out there that they are qualified for that will give them the same amount of money. Thus increasing the time of their unemployment because they become some what picky and demanding of where they want to work. and we shouldn't blame these people, its only logical to want to stay unemployed if this is paying more than any of the jobs that you can actually get hired at.

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=8698

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21607810-new-figures-show-speed-which-americas-economy-can-grow-without-stoking-inflation-has

Following up on my previous post I wanted to find more information on the employment status that America has up to date and I found a fairly recent article....

"Recent data have prompted a reappraisal. Not only has unemployment fallen rapidly, broader measures of underemployment which include the unemployed who have given up looking for work have fallen even further. Yet participation has not risen. Meanwhile, employers are having more trouble filling jobs: in May 3.2% of all jobs went vacant, close to a seven-year high, suggesting the jobless lack the skills that employers are looking for.

AMERICAN workers have had no news this good for years. In June employers added 288,000 jobs, bringing the total for the year to 1.4m, the best six-month stretch since 2006. Unemployment has sunk to 6.1%, the lowest rate in almost six years. It could hit levels long regarded as “full employment” within a year. Help-wanted signs are proliferating, with vacancies up by 20% since January."





This post from "The Economist" posted on July of 2014 states some statistics that imply that there are jobs out there but maybe not for people with no education. And as I mentioned before, maybe some of the resources that the government are using for welfare participants can be used in training for jobs that are actually booming in the market. Some jobs only need a few months to a year in training, and most of the welfare participants receive aid for the same amount of time, why wouldn't it be a good idea to require welfare participants and MOSTLY UNEMPLOYMENT RECIPIENNTS to go through a course that helps them get a job.

Today I was watching a show based on a fictional story called "House of Cards" its becoming a really popular show about American politics and everything that comes a long with being the president of the Unites States of America.

http://house-of-cards.wikia.com/wiki/America_Works
The character that plays the President in this show created a job opportunity campaign called "America Works." Which basically promises jobs to everyone and anyone that wants to work and is capable of working. "The ultimate aim of the legislation is to create full employment across the United States, with Underwood desiring its scope to be as wide as that of the New Deal. It plans on reducing entitlements from both Social Security and welfare, instead focusing on putting Americans into full time work." This made me think about the issues that people have with the welfare system and I asked my self...

WHY ISN'T THERE ENOUGH JOBS FOR EVERYONE IN THE REAL WORLD?
Because one of the arguments that people in the welfare system or that are in unemployment is that they can find a decent job.
I found this article published on Time that explains why unemployment reached its highest percentage in 2009 since 1983...
"This is hardly news, of course. For months economists have been talking about a jobless recovery. And they point to certain factors as having contributed to the problem — from the severity of the recent recession to the so-called skills gap, a shortage of workers with the training needed to fill the jobs that are available. These factors do help explain why job losses were so bad in the first place and why the unemployment rate reached 10% in 2009, the highest level since 1983. But they don’t explain why job creation continues to be so weak."

"To get back to the level of employment before the recession — replacing the jobs that were lost and also keeping up with natural growth in the workforce — would require more than 300,000 new jobs a month through 2016. In April, by contrast, there were only 115,000. And economists question whether the current U.S. economy is able to create even 150,000 jobs a month, on average — or half the number required."
WOW!! that is some big numbers to get the job market back to how it was before the recession. 

"Much of the reduction in the unemployment rate over the past two years has come from so-called discouraged workers — people who have given up on finding a job or left the workforce for other reasons. And it’s often noted that if the percentage of the population over age 16 who are working or looking for work were the same today as at the end of the recession, the unemployment rate would be in double digits."
One of the reasons that this article mentions that is affecting the job opportunity is that since the last recession the population growth has increased a lot and the above quote says that if all the people that are actually able to work would want to work, the unemployment rate would be even worse. 
So .. Welfare programs and governmental aid to the public is necessary but maybe there could be ways in which the government can use some of the money and resources used on welfare to create jobs for America just like in the fictional show House of Cards.

http://business.time.com/2012/05/07/why-arent-there-more-jobs/

I found this article while I was still searching how much money taxpayers contribute to welfare and it was refreashing to me that not everyone is trying to abolish the help to the "truly" needy!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/12/no-we-dont-spend-1-trillion-on-welfare-each-year/

THE WASHINGTON POST: "NO, WE DON'T SPEND $1 TRILLION ON WELFARE EACH YEAR" 

On the contrary to many opposing arguments that are trying to make welfare system look bad this article describes how conservatives try to manipulate they way they share information to make it seem worse than it actually is ....

The claim about $1 trillion on “welfare” is more interesting and complicated. It shows up in this recent report from the Cato Institute, which argues that the federal government spends $668 billion dollars per year on 126 different welfare programs (spending by the state and local governments push that figure up to $1 trillion per year).

Welfare has traditionally meant some form of “outdoor relief,” or cash, or cash-like compensation, that is given to the poor without them having to enter an institution. As the historian Michael Katz has documented, the battle over outdoor relief, has been a long one throughout our country’s history.

However, this claims says any money mostly spent on the poor is “welfare.” To give you a better sense here, the federal spending breaks down into a couple of broad categories. Only about one-third of it is actually what we think of as “welfare”:

1) Cash and cash-like programs: As Michael Linden of Center for American Progress told me, there are five big programs in the Cato list that are most analogous to what people think of as “welfare”: The refundable part of the Earned Income Tax Credit ($55 billion), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ($21 billion), Supplemental Security Income ($43.7 billion), food stamps ($75 billion), and housing vouchers ($18 billion) and the Child Tax Credit. All together, that’s around $212 billion dollars."

2) Health care: This is actually the biggest item on Cato’s list. Medicaid spends $228 billion on the non-elderly population, and children’s health insurance plan takes up another $13.5 billion. This is also roughly a third as well.

3) Opportunity-related programs: These are programs that are broadly related to opportunities, mostly in education or job-training. So you have things like Title 1 grants ($14 billion) and Head Start ($7.1 billion) in this category. But as Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Donna Pavetti notes, these programs don’t all go to poor people. For instance, Title I benefits school districts with a large share of poor children, however that money will help non-poor students attending those schools.

4) Targeted and community programs: What remains are programs designed to provide certain services to poor communities, which make up the bulk of the number of programs. Adoption assistance ($2.5 billion) and low income taxpayer clinics ($9.9 million) are two examples here.

So what should we take away from this?

--The federal government spends just $212 billion per year on what we could reasonably call “welfare.” (Even then, the poor have to enter the institution of waged labor to get the earned income tax credit.) And there have been numerous studies showing that these programs, especially things like food stamps, are both very efficient and effective at reducing poverty. They just don’t show up in the official poverty statistics, because that’s how the poverty statistics are designed.

"The government's only source of money is taxes. This is why all government welfare is immoral, unethical, and unconstitutional, it is just the forced redistributing wealth from a person that earned it, to a person that did not. Theft is defined as the forced redistribution of wealth, it is a crime in every human culture. But for some reason people keep electing politicians that promise to commit this crime....it boggles the mind."

This quote has no academic source and is written by a person who made a comment on a YouTube video that was talking about how drug testing welfare participants has turned out to be a waste of money. The link to that video is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Red4FsBiQI4
But these words by this American who seems to be against welfare made me think:

HOW MUCH DO TAX PAYERS ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE TO WELFARE?
At first I wanted to find information that contradicted this persons thought because I actually believe in helping the needy, and no matter what taxes are never going to go away, so regardless if our tax money goes to welfare or the government uses it for something else, we will be taxed until the day we die... but the issue I guess with this individual and the issue that I can understand and agree with , is are we contributing some of our tax money to people that are well capable of working but dont ?

I found an article that explained a couple of things that I was very well miss informed of...


http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1676
"Each year, approximately 143 million federal income tax returns are filed in the United States. Of these, about 58 million have no tax liability after taking deductions and credits, leaving roughly 85 million people to shoulder the nation's entire federal income tax burden. It is these 85 million people who fund the $746 billion federal portion of the nation's total welfare spending. On average, each of them spends $8,776 to keep federal welfare programs afloat. 

As of January 2009, only four of the 80+ federal welfare programs in existence had work requirements for their recipients; the Obama Administration subsequently suspended those requirements in two of the four programs. Most notable was its elimination of the provision in the 1996 welfare reform legislation (known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) requiring that after three months on food stamps, able-bodied adult recipients with no children must become engaged in some kind of work activity for a minimum of 20 hours per week in order to remain eligible for assistance. The termination of this requirement caused the number of healthy, childless food-stamp beneficiaries to double, from 1.9 million to 3.9 million. All told, the total number of food stamp recipients nationwide reached 46.7 million by 2012—up from about 32 million in 2008."

This is it, I think that this is the only problem that people want to change about welfare, the fact that even single childless individuals who are not handicapped are not required to work when receiving food stamps

SO WHAT WERE OBAMAS INTENTIONS OR IDEAS BEHIND GOING AGAINST THE 1996 WELFARE REFORM?

 While searching "Opposing view points" I found an article written by a girl name "Ranee" which caught my eye because our names are the same except mine is spelled "Renee".
She has a pretty harsh story on how she personally experienced neglect from her mother who has been collecting unemployment and not using it the way it should be.
"Ranee is a writer and contributor to Helium. In the following viewpoint, she expresses her strong support for mandatory drug testing of welfare recipients. Ranee argues that welfare should be reserved for emergency situations, not for drug addicts. She uses her own mother as a cautionary tale of a person who has abused both drugs and the welfare system, which she maintains has encouraged her mother's habits and has motivated others to engage in the same behavior."
Before you read the article there are a three questions that you are advised to think about while you read the information:

• What option does the author believe a welfare recipient should have if he or she fails the drug test due to a prescribed drug?
• How does Ranee respond to Bill Piper's point that drug testing is an invasion of privacy?
• How does Ranee state that her mother abused the welfare system?

"The same should apply to government testing as the workforce testing. If someone has to give a drug test for government assistance and fails due to a prescribed controlled drug, that doesn't mean that they won't receive assistance or that they will lose it. They simply have to prove that the drug is prescribed to them by a physician."
She mentions something that I have come across with in many of the campaigns against drug testing welfare participants and that is that many people are afraid of losing their governmental assistance if they come out positive because of prescribed drugs, but doesn't it seem logical that if they are truly prescribed drugs then they can easily prove this with a doctors prescription. No one can expect that you welfare be taken away if you medically are in need of certain prescription drugs and to be against drug testing welfare participants because of this seems irrational and making up excuses.

"Bill Piper [Director of National Affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance] tries to debate the subject with Mike Bennett [US Senator from Colorado] on Fox News. Piper states that it is an invasion of privacy and would be humiliating for someone to have to admit that they are on Viagra or anti depressants. Honestly, if I were a man that lost my job and home and could not afford to feed my family, I would be more embarrassed to be on welfare than to reveal a certain prescription I'm on to the "stranger" giving me a drug test. If your kids are starving, that should NOT matter or even cross your mind! Bill Piper believes that drug testing recipients on welfare would be "too expensive" and risky for kids whose parents won't return to the DHS [Department of Human Services] office for extended funding due the fear of a drug test."
She makes a great point that the TRUELY needy wont care about anything that they have to do if they need to feed their families or live another day. I think that people keep forgetting that governmental help is a BENEFIT not a luxury and its not something that people in a low income family are entitled to its something that should be taken care of

"That's a good thing right? Wouldn't that encourage people to get clean to at least renew their food stamps? Piper believes that instead of testing we should just "expand access to treatment" (because you know an addict on welfare can't afford to go to rehab.) This guy is ridiculous. Welfare rehab? Is he being serious? That would cause taxes to go sky hi! "
This is giving people too much of a break or freedom to do what ever they want. If we want to build America upward we need to establish policies and governmental help that give people the incentive to work and better their life's.

"I'm not downing the welfare system; I just believe that it should be reserved for emergency situations, like people losing their jobs because of the economy and the disabled. It shouldn't go to people like my mother who lack the incompetence to keep a job due to drug use"
This is the statements from Ranee that truly caught my eye and mind. Like she said its not about saying that welfare should be terminated or that helping the needy is wrong but this help since it is getting so hard to get with so many budget cuts should be available to those who truly need it because they were laid off not because they have a problem with drugs or alcohol.

and finally to put the cherry on top...
"Weren't the Bill of Rights created to protect the rights of citizens ... so Piper is basically saying "you have the right to abuse drugs, and turn down a drug test because you have something to hide". Come on! it's just as easy as getting a physical in junior high to play a school sport, no one wants to get the physical because they're weird, but all the kids want to play ball. In the end the physical was for their own good. I know we can only control so much but it's our honest hard earned money, don't we have a RIGHT to know that it's going to a good cause?"

http://0-ic.galegroup.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&u=uofcden&currPage=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010238286

I have been researching a lot on welfare and governmental services throughout the United States but I wanted to see some numbers at a local perspective.

http://www.coloradodaily.com/ci_20038794

I found this website and the title or the article said:

 

Welfare drug tests: Plans get momentum in Colorado, other states

 

 

The article touched similar points to a lot of the information I have encountered on the topic of welfare, currently the 2 most popular topics talking about welfare are "drug use" and "dependency on welfare with out the incentive to find a job" and this seems to be pursued more by the republican party...

 

"Conservatives who say welfare recipients should have to pass a drug test in order to receive government assistance have momentum on their side.

The issue has come up in the Republican presidential campaign, with front-runner Mitt Romney saying "it's an excellent idea."
I'm not very well educated on this entire topic yet but the way I see it is that American tax payers are tired of "taking care" of welfare recipients especially the ones that are abusing this help, President Obama being a democrat (it is known that democrats are more liberal and lenient where republicans are driven to harsher laws) has supported the welfare system. So it is no surprise that Mitt Romney is supporting drug testing welfare participants.

"Driving the measures is a perception that people on public assistance are misusing the funds and that cutting off their benefits would save money for tight state budgets - even as statistics have largely proved both notions untrue.
"The idea, from Joe Taxpayer is, 'I don't mind helping you out, but you need to show that you're looking for work, or better yet that you're employed, and that you're drug and alcohol free,'" said Wyoming Republican House Speaker Ed Buchanan on Friday. "
So if statistical studies have proven that most of the people that are using public assistance really need it why is it that certain individuals (most of American tax payers) believe that welfare is being taken advantage of by the lazy?
I think that the idea behind this is that "EVERYONE PAYS THE PRICE FOR THE ACCTIONS OF A FEW"

"This legislation assumes suspicion on this group of people. It assumes that they're drug abusers," said Wyoming Democratic Rep. Patrick Goggles during a heated debate on the measure late Thursday. "
At the beginning of my research on welfare and its issues, I cannot deny, that I was one of the individuals that presumed most of the welfare participants take advantage of the system but when I see statement like the one above it makes me realize that this is inhumane to judge a group of people because of their social status in a way. But at the same time I keep going back and worth with the idea that if people are calling out welfare participants for being drug users why not prove them wrong, in the end they are being helped out by the government the least they can do is "Pee in a cup" to prove everyone wrong. And as previous information that I have already mentioned before it has shown that only a few percentage of welfare participants have been under the influence of drugs, SO WHY KEEP PERSUEING THIS ISSUE?

"But as lawmakers seek new ways to fight off the effect of the recession on state budgets and Republican politics dominate the national discussion as the party seeks a presidential nominee, the idea has sparked political debates across the nation. "
Perhaps this ongoing debate is hitting the light even more now because of the future presidential debates, every person that wants to become president wants to fix what he or she thinks that the current president hasn't been able to fix ( or at least hasn't dealt well with).

"The biggest piece that has held up action now and in the past are the constitutional questions," said Rochelle Finzel, the Children and Families Program manager at the NCSL. She said some states are trying to avoid court challenges by requiring drug tests only in cases where there's reasonable cause to believe there's substance abuse, instead of requiring everyone to take a test.
One such state is Missouri, which last year also passed legislation requiring drug testing for welfare recipients, if there is reasonable cause to suspect illegal drug use. "
The idea that you can only drug test people who are being suspected of drug use is CONSTITUTIONALY SAFE but in reality I personally know many people that you could never imagine use drugs, and in another topic how many children are being abused behind closed doors and many professional child care people cant "reasonably" guess who is truly being abused.

SO WHAT IS HAPPENING LOCALLY WITH THIS DEBATE?
"The Colorado plan is expected to fail because Democrats who oppose it control the state Senate. But Republicans have succeeded in starting a conversation on to the issue. "

So it is a battle of what democrats believe and what republicans want to pursue

 



Welfare is something that concerns me particularly because growing my mother and I had federal housing assistance (section 8) from the time I was 12 years old until I turned 21. My mother struggled to get this assistance for 3 years before her application was reviewed and she got approved.
When I think of welfare I don't know why I automatically think of the struggle my mom had to go through trying to provide me with a roof over my head. Looking more into debates and arguments as to why welfare assistance and other government aids are so hard to get is because maybe some people over used it or abused of it.
I don't want to focus on the good or bad of welfare I just want to understand it completely.
RECAP OF MY THOUGHT PROCESS THROUGHOUT THIS BLOG:

• Should welfare participants be drug tested before receiving government help?
• What states passed the dug testing welfare participants legislation?
• Was the drug testing effective?
• If drugs aren't the problem with people abusing welfare what is?
• what are the job requirements when being on welfare?
• What are the statistics on welfare?
• Who are the ones opposing governmental help and why ?
• Should all welfare participants pay the ultimate price for a handful of those who abuse the governments help ?

This last bullet point brought me to find this webpage called: Welfare weekly
http://www.welfareweekly.com/
 Here I found many articles and debates that have to do with welfare and all the issues that are CURRENTLY surrounding this. One of the issues that is most talked about is how governmental cuts are affecting those that are TRUELY in need of assistance.
Although this page is based on the UK it is interesting to see some of the issues that are happening there are very similar to the welfare crisis happening here in America.

What can be done so that people dont prolong their welfare or government help just because it could actually benefit them more than having a job?

Instead of some people against welfare saying that the united states should create harsher rules on the government aids, why not come up with some solutions or ideas that can lead welfare participants into bettering their life's and using welfare only as a building block to their success.
Some of the ideas that I was thinking about were...

• Welfare and other government aids practically give out money and nutrition help such as food stamps. Which is amazing because people get the help that they need, but many people debate that people can become lazy and dependent on these, so what if one of the reforms that welfare and other government aid can do is provide welfare participants with FREE education on how to better their life's. By this I don't mean give them free graduate education because that is another issue that is going on in America but what I mean is free classes or courses on how to apply for jobs, maybe some English classes for those that English isn't their first language. Also education on health and pregnancy because it seems that children are the reason that many people apply for government help in the first place.
• Another idea that goes hand in hand with the controversy that some people abuse welfare and take advantage of the help is developing a way in which the person that is granted food stamps has to be the person that cashes them. Like seen in many movies (and I am sure this happens in real life) people that receive food stamps trade them for cash value or alcohol, drugs, ect. So if there would be a way in which an ID is required to use food stamps or a way to track where they ended up maybe welfare recipients wont be driven to exchange them for other things.
• what about if instead of giving out food stamps each city or community had a store or location where welfare recipients could pick up just enough of what they needed to survive that week. I once did some community service at this place where each Sunday they opened up the doors to more than 100 families and individuals that were in need of food. and instead of providing them with money or food stamps/ coupons, they gave these people a basket and let them take as much as they could fit in it of food. The food was all donated and was the basic essentials that a family could need like bread, eggs, milk, cheese, ham and so on...

While I was reading the comments on a TED talk discussion I came across Anne Thull's ideas on what can be done to reduce the costs of welfare and I cant agree more with her!!
below is her exact words:
Sep 2 2012: Welfare should be available for everyone who needs it for a limited time.
It should be a helping hand-up, not a free ride.
If it becomes a free ride you are diminishing the positive spirit the person may still have to improve their situation.
People who need additional help should move to another tier of Welfare, with proof of long term disability papers etc.

Here's an Idea: Using local State Universities to help reduce Welfare Costs

- The top state universities receive X dollars from the government each year, to meet their local Welfare Recipients and distribute the welfare Checks. The $ received by the government are based on how many Welfare recipients are in the community for the University to handle.

-The Universities offer certain classes to Welfare recipients who want to learn a new trade, get a new job and improve their situation. Many of these may be home-based businesses in the long run. Some of this training may need to be at the welfare recipients home, by a teacher in training at the university -for school credits.

- The Government gives the University a bonus $ for every Welfare person the University trains and becomes employed each year.
- The Universities use the bonus $ to pay for materials needed for training the Welfare recipients.
- Eventually the Universities create their own Community Adult School retraining

The University is creating more jobs by training the people - The university can use teachers in training to receive their credits.
The Welfare Recipients improve their lives.
The Universities are controlling Welfare Fraud at their end
The Community wins as it reduces non-productive and poorer economic areas.
The Universities turn Welfare Recipients into tax payers.
the people win - reduce government employee costs, government waste,

I was thinking back to my original thoughts on welfare and I began with the controversial legislation that 12 states passed requiring the drug test of welfare recipients and applicants
*Most of these states like previously mentioned have small print on needing a reasonable suspicion to submit these recipients and participants to a drug test
Now the more I look into everything that has to do with welfare I keep coming across more issues concerning the fact that welfare and unemployment benefits lead people to want to stay jobless rather than finding a job because they know welfare pays more in some cases than a normal job

http://www.ted.com/conversations/13380/the_solution_to_welfare_crisis.html

This TED article speaks more about this issue.
I asked my self :

IF DRUGS ARENT THE PROBLEM THEN WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH WELFARE?



I also asked my self,

IS THE PROBLEM WITH WELFARE AN ECONOMICAL PROBLEM OR A SOCIOLOGICAL PROBLEM?

To understand the need for welfare and other government aid I asked my self some questions:

• What percentage of each race uses welfare/ government aids?
• What race group is the one that uses more welfare/ government aids?
• Is there a pattern among these percentages?

I found great statistics that are based on the US Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Commerce, CATO Institute, and the research date was January 14, 2015 which is the most recent date I have found when searching for information on this topic, a lot of the academic sources I have encountered date back around 1996 when the welfare reform took place.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/

Welfare Statistics
Total number of Americans on welfare	11,400,000
Total number of Americans on food stamps	41,700,000
Total number of Americans on unemployment insurance	10,200,000
Percent of the US population on welfare	4.1 %
Total government spending on welfare annually (not including food stamps or unemployment)	$131.9 billion
Welfare Demographics
Percent of recipients who are white	38.8 %
Percent of recipients who are black	39.8 %
Percent of recipients who are Hispanic	15.7 %
Percent of recipients who are Asian	2.4 %
Percent of recipients who are Other	3.3 %
Welfare Statistics
Total amount of money you can make monthly and still receive Welfare	$1000
Total Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than an $8 per hour job	39
Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than a $12 per hour job	6
Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than the average salary of a U.S. Teacher	8
Average Time on AFCD (Aid to Families with Dependent Children)
Time on AFDC	Percent of Recipients
Less than 7 months	19%
7 to 12 months	15.2%
1 to 2 years	19.3%
2 to 5 years	26.9%
Over 5 years	19.6%
Top 10 Hourly Wage Equivalent Welfare States in U.S.
State	Hourly Wage Equivalent
Hawaii	$17.50
Alaska	$15.48
Massachusetts	$14.66
Connecticut	$14.23
Washington, D.C.	$13.99
New York	$13.13
New Jersey	$12.55
Rhode Island	$12.55
California	$11.59
Virginia	$11.11

1. This chart and website contains really good information and it even goes as far as to providing what states provide you with more money for welfare than the minimum wage. On surprising fact for me was that there is 8 states that welfare pays more than the average salary of a teacher!!!! what is this saying? that a person who has been aspiring to be a teacher might as well do nothing and apply for welfare because she will make more money off of the government ?
2. This chart shows that the difference between black and white race percentages on welfare is only by 1%. This makes me think about all the prejudice there is against African Americans and how some people that are not well educated categorize ALL blacks as ignorant and lazy. this chart shows that white are only behind by 1% if we really want to get into the discussion that everyone on welfare is lazy and is living off of the government.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/12/the-politics-and-demographics-of-food-stamp-recipients/

In the website above I found statistics of people who have used food stamps when it came to dividing them into their political groups.
people who claim to be democrats are twice as likely to have used food stamps in their life time than those who are republicans.

So is seeking government aid a social class issue?
is it a race issue?
or is it a political party issue?
This cant be answered with one simple answer because with the statistics above it shows that the usage of government aid have been provided to many Americans of all difference gender and races.

Do welfare recipients have to work?
I started to think about this question more and more as I saw that many of the government aid programs out there base their help according to how much money the household makes and how many people live in the household, so I thought to my self "What if you have a 0 household income, then what?"
while searching for answers I came across a funny title that caught my eye it said...


http://nypost.com/2013/08/19/when-welfare-pays-better-than-work/
"When welfare pays better than work"
Although this article focuses on the city of New York only it still shows pretty jaw dropping facts..
"Here’s an offer for you: $38,004 per year, tax free.No work required.Apply at your local welfare office." 
This information is based on a household of a single mother of 2. 

"While that might not sound overly generous, remember that welfare benefits aren’t taxed, while wages are. So someone in New York would have to earn more than $21 per hour to be better off than they would be on welfare.That’s more than the average statewide entry-level salary for a teacher."
Wow!!! this is definitely surprising when you put it in this perspective, having money granted to you that is tax free definitely makes a difference. Especially when you consider the cost of having to go to work, by this I mean transportation cost and money for lunch if you dont make it at home....


"Of course, not everyone on welfare gets all seven of the benefits in our study. But, for many recipients — particularly the “long-term” dependents — welfare clearly pays substantially more than an entry-level job."
Now this makes more sense, so the amount of $38,004 a year that a single mother of 2 could receive in New York is based on that household qualifying to receive ALL of the government aids available, which not everyone can.

"To be clear: There is no evidence that people on welfare are lazy. Indeed, surveys of them consistently show their desire for a job. But they’re also not stupid. If you pay them more not to work than they can earn by working, many will choose not to work."
Im glad that this point was made, it might seem that I keep trying to find evidence that points towards showing that people on welfare are non deserving of these helps but what I am really interested in IS THE GOVERNMENT REALLY HELPING THESE PEOPLE? how can we help people progress in life if for many the government help is like a 30 year old still living under his or hers parents roof.

"If Congress and state legislatures are serious about reducing welfare dependence and rewarding work, they should consider strengthening work requirements in welfare programs, removing exemptions and narrowing the definition of work."
this makes a lot of sense to me and it made me question what were the original work requirements when welfare was reformed in 1996??
The personal responsibility and work opportunity act of 1996 was meant to increase labor market participation among those receiving government aid... So has this been done in the past years? The reason for this 1996 reform was the concern that many of those that had been receiving government help for a long period of time lacked the initiative to actually look for a job.. this seems to be the problem still even after 19 years of this reform. and it connects to what the previous article was mentioning that we should consider if some of the welfare programs especially the ones that provide cash allowances, are they really helping the people?


2015
so today where are we with the work requirements for welfare recipients?
In 2012 president Obama waived the requirement for work that the 1996 legislation passed
so you can participate in work related activities which can include just trying to find a job but not necessary applying for one, and this qualifies you for some government helps. many people that are against Presidents Obamas ruling to extend welfare support longer than the 1996 reform wanted, say that this leaved the door open for situation like a mother with a child that has a disability extending her welfare support because she hasn't found a way to take care of her child and work at the same time, another scenario is a person extending their welfare support because they need more time to learn the English language before getting a job...

its hard to pick a side on this welfare reform act and the extension of welfare support because as a human being you want people in need to be helped but you have to question some of the people that are receiving this help....

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/28/rick-santorum/Santorum-Romney-claim-Obama-ending-welfare-work/
this website is where I found arguments that go againts extending the welfare support , although I find it to be biased to the republican party...

Since drug testing welfare participants has shown that only a very small percentage of participants have failed their drug test I asked my self some other questions...

• How much money does the government help you with per child?
• Does the aid increase as you have more children?
• Is there a limit you can reach or do you get more and more with more children?
• Do you have to be a single parent?
• Are you government worker to verify that the aid is helping the children?

http://www.welfareinfo.org/payments/

This website states that $500 worth of food stamps is the average aid for a family of 4. For a single person household it averages $200 per month. 

Can this be an incentive for people to have children?

TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) can provide an average cash allowance of $900 for a family of 4. This might not sound like much but food stamps and TANF help can be combined together. A single household can receive an average of $200 per month. 

In this website I found a paragraph that caught my eye 

"Even as you look at these welfare amounts, it is not surprising that the current allowance benefits seldom if ever make ends meet for the recipient. The institutionalized program was set up to be an offset measure for those in need, not a complete replacement of income and benefits. The downside to this is that as the economy continues to take a nosedive, so does the available means for those living with minimal income. A family of 4 cannot live on $900 a month. Additionally, criminal activities meant to defraud the SRS program greatly limit the available funds for those who truly need and make the regulations stricter, in some cases too strict, eliminating the benefits for those who truly need it. "

The first thing I noticed was that it mentioned how these programs were meant to aid people in need not completely maintain a person or household for life. Im assuming that the government wants people to still get up and try to better their life's, these government helps are put out so that people can live another day, so that children can wake up and eat before going to school, so that there is a roof on top of their heads so that the children can go on with their life's and better themselves... not so that parents can free load on these government help and just assume that they will be taken care of for ever. 

The other thing that caught my eye was how this paragraph mentioned how criminal activity is causing the regulations to get stricter, it might have been hinting on the "drug testing welfare participants" although the results from passing that legislation didn't come back with good results tax paying people and the government are asking themselves if EVERYONE in a welfare program or any other government aid truly needs this help or have they found a loophole to continue to free load on this help. 

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility

While I was searching for some answers regarding the question of

"Is there a limit you can reach or do you get more and more with more children?"

I found this website that is based on the SNAP's program... which is the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program and I found that although there are many requirements to be met when applying for this aid, the amount that they help you with does increase with the household size the chart shows the amount of increase...

How Much Could I Receive?  Allotments for households in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia.

"The amount of benefits the household gets is called an allotment. The net monthly income of the household is multiplied by .3, and the result is subtracted from the maximum allotment for the household size to find the household's allotment. This is because SNAP households are expected to spend about 30 percent of their resources on food."

(October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015)

People in Household	Maximum Monthly Allotment
1	$   194
2	$   357
3	$   511
4	$   649
5	$   771
6	$   925
7	$ 1,022
8	$ 1,169
Each additional person	$    146

 The SNAP's aid assumes that 30% of the resources granted to a household should be spent on food, so where does the other 70% go ? Do they care what the households do with the rest of the 70%? 

While I was researching more on drug testing welfare recipients and participants I found that many websites are saying that instead of saving money by terminating drug users from government aid, the government spending more money to drug test these people, so my question is ...

How much money has the government spent on drug testing welfare recipients?

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-money-by-drug-testing-welfare-recipients-data-shows/1225721
In this article I found out that only 2.6% of welfare recipients in the state of Florida failed their drug test. In other numbers only 108 people out of the 4,086 welfare recipients failed the drug test.
These numbers are surprisingly low, before gathering information about this issue I would have put my bet on a lot of people failing the drug test. maybe just because of the people in my personal life that I have encountered but this has led me to think that we cant judge everyone the same or make the same assumption about all the people in the same socio economical class.

Florida's law stated that welfare participants had to pay for their drug screening and if they passed they would get their money reimbursed if they didn't they had to be on a year probation period before being able to re apply for welfare
This makes total sense to me because if you support drug testing welfare participants then this ideology that they have to pay for their drug screen in order to prove they are clean makes sense and especially because if they fail, the money that was spent on the drug test came out of their pocket
BUT .....

Since only 2.6% of those welfare participants failed then that only means that taxpayers spent $118,140 on reimbursing those people that passed their drug test this equals to $35 per drug test.
So now it is easy to take the side of the people who say that drug testing welfare recipients is a waste of time and money and in a ways is unconstitutional.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/26/3624447/tanf-drug-testing-states/
When searched for money numbers as to how much has been actually spent on drug testing welfare particpants I came across this website and it had this information:

• Missouri spent $336,297 - From January 2014 -December 2014
• Oklahoma spent $385,872 -From November 2012 - November 2014
• Utah spent $64,566 - From August 2012- July 2014
• Kansas spent $40,000 - From July 2014- December 2014
• Mississippi spent $5,290 - From August 2014- December 2014
• Tennessee spent $5,295 - From July 2014- December 2014
• Arizona spent $499 - 2010-2014 

The total amount that all of these states spent on drug testing is $837,817
The total amount of welfare participants tested in all of these states is 219,744
and the total amount of welfare participants that tested positive in all of these states is 427

Now after reviewing this information its hard to say that this is helping "save money on welfare" if the outcome of spending so much on drug testing isn't what the government thought it would be.
I am personally surprised because like I previously mentioned I would of thought that the number of people that failed the test would be higher.

How ever there is still people that debate that it isn't about the money but doing what is right and fighting against those who abuse the governments aid...
But in this case is it worth it to fight these 427 people when we could have used the $837,817 into other things like helping public schools?

The amount of if's and but's on this dilemma can go on for ever...

Substance abuse has been a concern and issue since the 1996 federal welfare reform.
Gathering more information on the idea that welfare applicants or any applicant that is in need of public assistance should undergo a drug test I wanted to know if there are any states that are already doing this.

12 states that approved this legislation:

1. Alabama (2014) "Drug testing with suspicion"
2. Arizona (2011) "Drug testing with suspicion"
3. Florida (2011) "Drug testing ALL participants"
4. Georgia (2012) "Drug testing ALL participants"
5. Kansas (2013) "Drug testing with suspicion"
6. Michigan (2014) "Drug testing with suspicion"
7. Mississippi (2014) "Drug testing with suspicion"
8. Missouri (2011) "Drug testing with suspicion"
9. North Carolina (2013) "Drug testing with suspicion"
10. Oklahoma (2012) "Drug testing ALL participants"
11. Tennessee (2012) "Drug testing with suspicion"
12. Utah (2012) "Drug testing with suspicion"

Not all states are drugs testing ALL welfare participants or recipients some have specific exceptions where a participant or recipient will only be drug tested if he or she is believed to be using drugs. This exception is because when this legislation was first proposed one of the arguments against this was that it was "unconstitutional" to do suspicionless or random drug testing. This goes against the 4th amendment where participants shouldn't be drug tested with out having reasons to believe they are abusing drugs.
This makes complete sense to me because in a way it is assuming that welfare participants are driven into drugs , why? because they are poor perhaps? Many can argue that the low income families are doing nothing but trying to better their lives and drugs are not a part of that mission.
There is no evidence that the poor use more drugs than any other socio economic group....

http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/drug-testing-and-public-assistance.aspx

Thinking more about the question of "should a law pass that requires people to pass a drug test before they can receive welfare", I came across another thought. While discussing this with professor Crawford he mentioned how drug testing might step over someones privacy, if this is an actual argument that could prevent this law from even passing, then should welfare applicants be required to at least work 10-15 a week? My whole though process to this goes back to the point that , if the government keeps helping people, the ones that don't really need the help will continue to take advantage of the system just because they are lazy.

http://www.welfareinfo.org/apply/
In this website I found out what Welfare is entirely, I used to think that it was only food stamps and money but part of the money that the government puts together for the welfare program also goes to medicaid.
"different governmental programs such as Food Stamps, Medicaid, HUD homes programs and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). "

http://www.nlsa.us/resources/benefits/pb3_application_tips.html
While searching on the requirements to be approved for welfare I came across this website that gives people tips on how to apply. I want to inform my self on the entire process and everything that you can get helped with when getting approved for welfare.
To my surprise i learned that welfare aid can go as far as to help you with "Energy assistance"

I don't have anything against the government helping people in need, my concern is that some people out there might be abusing this power. For example , and this is a theoretical idea but what is there is a family of a single mother who can afford to keep energy in her house or apartment, but has an alcohol or drug addiction so the only money she has left over she uses it on liquor or weed. With out a law requiring welfare participants to PROVE that they are clean, situations like these can keep on happening.
The reason I capitalized PROVE is because i always say, If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about. It seems irrational to me that some people might be against this, i say if you are against it then its because you have something to lose when and if this law would ever pass.