“I would much rather be doing work,” welfare recipients told Lisa Conyers in numerous interviews. “And it didn’t matter what kind of work, any kind of work than having to be on these [welfare] programs.” Conyers visited homeless tent cities, soup kitchens and other spots frequented by those living in poverty to hear the stories of those living on welfare. Those stories can be read in “The Human Cost of Welfare: How the System Hurts the People It’s Supposed to Help,” which Conyers co-authored with Phil Harvey. Both Conyers and Harvey work for the DKT Liberty Project.
Nearly $1 trillion is spent at all levels of government on anti-poverty programs a year. Roughly 70 percent of that spending comes from the federal government. But how can we be sure that taxpayer funding for welfare programs actually helps those in poverty, especially when the poverty rate (14.8 percent) has hardly budged in the past half-century?
Welfare is supposed to work as a safety net, a resource that serves as a stopgap when someone temporarily falls on hard times. Payments are meant to be temporary, to help out until someone can get back on their feet and support themselves. “You lose a job, you go on food stamps for three, four, five months and you go off,” Harvey said Monday during a book forum at the libertarian Cato Institute. That’s how welfare is supposed to work, and how it does work for some, but now too many people are staying on welfare for years and years.
The major problem with welfare is what’s called the “benefits cliff.” As soon as someone on welfare starts to earn a little money their various benefits might get cut off completely. Sometimes, tens of thousands of dollars in benefits can be threatened by earning a tiny sum. “The whole psychology about work changes when you’re on these programs. All the sudden, the value of the programs becomes greater than a job you could get,” Conyers said.
“Oh no no no, you’re earning a little money now. We’re going to have to cut your benefits,” Harvey said, quoting what one caseworker said to a woman on welfare. “Now that woman is afraid to earn any money at all now, exactly the opposite of what I think people in poverty want to do to themselves, and exactly the opposite of what we would like them to be able to do.”
Welfare recipients often get a reputation as lazy people that live off taxpayers and don’t have any interest in working. But that’s an unfair characterization, according to Conyers and Harvey. Harvey quoted a women in Decatur, Ill., who told them, “I remember that first paycheck when I went back to work like it was yesterday: $177. Not much, right? But it was mine. And I took it home and showed it to the kids, and it made me feel good inside.”
Like many others, the woman got pride from earning a living rather than cashing welfare checks. “People who aren’t working generally aren’t as happy as people who are,” Harvey added.
So, what’s the solution? Too often, welfare programs punish beneficiaries for making an honest living. “Making welfare point toward work is an important part [of reform]. The present system is anti-work. It’s almost a war on work,” Harvey said.
This could include an expansion of the earned income tax credit. Additionally, the idea of a universal basic income was floated at the event. For example, where every adult in the country would get $10,000 a year from the government, but no other cash benefits. That could be means-tested, and the sum could change depending on the poverty level. Alternatively, a tax credit for charitable giving to specific welfare charities could be established, a more targeted version of the charitable deduction.
There’s no shortage of ideas out there, but one concept runs through them: Encourage welfare recipients to work. Welfare programs need to be a ladder that helps able-bodied adults climb back to independence, not a hammock that they live on forever. “The best thing that you could do … is make work more attractive,” Harvey said. “The worst thing, it seems to me, that you can do to somebody is to put them in a situation where they’re going to be in a perpetual cycle of dependency and poverty. That’s cruel.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
