Welfare & Drug Addiction
When it comes to welfare many opinions arise. Some people believe that welfare should be given to anyone that needs it, no matter the circumstance. Welfare should not exist no matter what. In my opinion, welfare should be given to ones in need of it, however, they should be required to get drug tested and must get a proof of citizenship. This topic may not be liked, however, people who are not deserving of help seem to be the ones being helped rather than the ones who are deserving. First off, I want to talk about how people should be drug tested every month before receiving their welfare checks or food stamps. About 20% of welfare recipients reported to have used some sort of illegal drug within the past 12 months, and that is a major problem. On top of this, drug use is 50% more common in welfare-receiving households than it is in non-welfare households.
Money used towards drugs should be being used towards their living expenses. If they fail a drug test they should not be allowed to receive what all they could have gotten. For people who have a job they usually get random drug tests, or they get drug tested if something suspicious happens. If you fail a drug test on a job, you get fired. It is not fair to the people who go to work everyday for their money and remain drug free to support themselves and their families.
The sad thing is that a lot of people that have a job do not have enough money to put food on their table for their families, and they get rejected to receive help from food stamps. However, drug addicts who do not have a jobs get money from welfare and food stamps. Although some people will say that if people who fail drug tests lose their welfare, then it will be their kids who suffer and go hungry. That may be true, and I would hate for kids to go hungry because their parent(s) could not pass a drug test. If this rule was put into place, it may help people to get jobs and stay drug free. The second thing I want to state is that citizenship should have to be proved. Somehow illegals are getting welfare. How could this possibly be happening? I am not quite sure how. Around 35% of America’s population is on welfare. There are 40 million immigrants living in America; 20% of immigrants are on Medicaid, with around 30% being illegal non-citizens.
All I know is that it needs to stop. This should not happen because illegals do not pay taxes into our government, so they should not get free money and food from our government. This is not fair to our hard-working Americans who pay taxes into our government. In the case of illegals getting welfare, they come to our country illegally, do not pay taxes, might not even work, and then get a paycheck from the money the hard-working taxpayer, who really need some help feeding their families, and can not get it. Yes, these people might need help, however they should get citizenship and pay their taxes like everyone else in order to receive help from our government. Also, I think that the government should recalculate how they see who qualifies for welfare and who does not qualify. There is around $1 trillion in government welfare spending per year. There is some way that people play the system when it come to getting government funds.
There are so many families that I know personally, that do not qualify to get help from welfare, and they really need it. I have also seen people who go into the store and buy a whole buggy worth of food with food stamps and then roll that buggy outside and put all those groceries into their 2018 Escalade. If they can afford to buy an almost 100,000-dollar car, then how do they get welfare? It is the system. The system is rigged to help people who are not necessarily in need of the help, or the ones who just do not want to work for the things that they get. Something should definitely be changed to better benefit the ones in need rather the ones who just want anything they can get and not work for it. Throughout this essay, I have argued my opinions about the situations with welfare. I will not be satisfied with the way the system works until the circumstances change.
Welfare is a great idea because it supports the families out there who are in need of money to provide for their loved ones. However, it is not good when it is operating the way it is today. People who are on drugs and people who already have a job and money to support their needs are getting this extra money every month. It is not right. It should be for the people who are not able to work a job or to care for themselves and family members. With working on stricter policies of who can or cannot receive government funded benefits, America is taking a big step towards becoming “great again”. It may be hard to turn some people down in their times of need, but consequences should be faced if they are doing things that are illegal or if their money is being spent elsewhere. Welfare can be a useful tool to help certain individuals with proper funding for a short period of time, and in doing so they can learn to get up on their own feet.
