Welfare Reform: Welfare Abuse In The United States

Welfare Abuse “Today, we are ending welfare as we know it, but I hope this day will be remembered not for what it ended, but for what it began” (Welfare Reform). These words were spoken by President Clinton during the signing ceremony of his passed legislature that called for a drastic reform of the welfare system. After years of implementation, the current welfare system of the time, the AFDC, had been said to cause familial issues when it was meant to be providing aid to families in poverty. It had been accused of promoting fatherless children and providing the poor and out-of-work with reasons and motives to stay unemployed. Being funded by taxes, it does not make much sense to continue a program that hinders both those receiving it

Unlike with the AFDC, the TANF program is funded federally and the state does not have to meet the federal funds with an equal amount of their own. Instead, states need to spend on TANF recipients, at least 75% of what they spent the previous year on the AFDC (Marx). The money that was poured into the new program by the federal government was given to the state, not the recipients directly. At this point the state would use these funds against poverty at their own discretion. While the goal was to make each dollar more effective to people in poverty, there is evidence of issues with the program over time. Some of this has to do with each state 's autonomy and their ability to decide where the grant money from the government goes. “In 1996, for every 100 families with children living in poverty, TANF provided cash aid to 68 families. By 2010, it provided cash assistance to only 27 such families for every 100 in poverty” (Trisi). This depicts the TANF steadily losing effectiveness. A possible reason for this could actually be inflation. The block grant for TANF given to each state has been a fixed rate since it 's conception in 1996 so this would mean that as the years go by and inflation rises, the power behind each dollar falls (Trisi). This is a serious issue. States are receiving the same amount of money each year, inflation is rising, and each year there are more families that need aid. All of

However, as people always do, some manage to find their way around this problem and sell their debit cards for 50 cents on the dollar for cash (Roskin et al, 273). So how much of our taxes do these food stamp “traffickers” (USDA) rob us of? In 2012, approximately $80 billion was poured into the SNAP (Burke) and according to the USDA, a little over one percent of food stamp funds is misused. This sounds insignificant but that comes out to 800 million of taxpayer dollars. Hardly a trifle amount. Thankfully, the government is cracking down on such behavior. For a “trafficker” to get another debit card after selling theirs, they have to fill out a lost card form. After so many of those, an investigation takes place to determine whether or not there is illegal behavior involved. Overall, food stamps aren 't abused to the point that they should be remanded or revoked from “48 million” (Roskin et al, 273) plus Americans who are currently granted SNAP aid. Surprisingly enough, a much greater leader in welfare abuse than food stamps is actually Medicaid. A mogul in both the welfare and healthcare systems, Medicaid has a large margin of financial abuse from both sides of the spectrum; healthcare providers and patients alike, both misuse and abuse Medicaid. “Fraud and abuse in Medicaid cost states billions of dollars every year,