The Welfare Dollar Goes ’Round and ’Round

The welfare rolls in the United States currently number 15 million Americans, and the annual cost is approximately $20 billion. But welfare is not just statistics. It is synonymous with poverty, and poverty means drugs, crime, and deteriorating cities. A drug addict dies on a lonely Harlem street. A building superintendent bashes down a door in a dank tenement and rapes a woman. A welfare mother screams obscenities because she cannot get the money to feed her children.

Despite the massive social and economic effects of welfare, no solution seems forthcoming, partly because sharply conflicting analyses logjam reform. Liberals see the problem as economic: those on relief are excluded from the mainstream, unable to help themselves; higher payments are in order. Conservatives see the problem in moral terms: those on relief are “cheaters” and “loafers”; financial cutbacks and stricter regulations are in order.

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Clayton Thomas

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The welfare rolls in the United States currently number 15 million Americans, and the annual cost is approximately $20 billion. But welfare is not just statistics. It is synonymous with poverty, and poverty means drugs, crime, and deteriorating cities. A drug addict dies on a lonely Harlem street. A building superintendent bashes down a door in a dank tenement and rapes a woman. A welfare mother screams obscenities because she cannot get the money to feed her children.

Despite the massive social and economic effects of welfare, no solution seems forthcoming, partly because sharply conflicting analyses logjam reform. Liberals see the problem as economic: those on relief are excluded from the mainstream, unable to help themselves; higher payments are in order. Conservatives see the problem in moral terms: those on relief are “cheaters” and “loafers”; financial cutbacks and stricter regulations are in order.