The Work vs. Welfare Trade-off

http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/work-versus-welfare-trade

In 1995, the Cato Institute published a groundbreaking study, The Work vs. Welfare Trade-off, which estimated the value of the full package of welfare benefits available to a typical recipient in each of the 50 states. Not only did the value of such benefits greatly exceed the poverty level but, because welfare benefits are tax-free, their dollar value was greater than the amount of take-home income a worker would receive from an entry-level job. Welfare benefits continue to outpace the income that most recipients can expect to earn from an entry-level job, and the balance between welfare and work may actually have grown worse in recent years.

This article is pretty much the same as my last one. A study was done and they concluded that a person is better off as a welfare recipient than actually working at an entry level job. This is not the purpose of welfare, it's to help families in need pay for necessities and not give someone more money than they would actually make working for a living. There are many things that could be done to reduce the national debt, but trimming welfare checks would certainly help this country. 

Study: Welfare pays more than minimum wage in most states

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/21/study-in-most-states-welfare-pays-more-than-minimum-wage-job/

Welfare pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, creating little incentive for Americans to take entry-level work and likely increasing their long-term dependency on government help. The Clinton administration, with bipartisan support from Congress, passed landmark welfare reform legislation that was supposed to move Americans away from entitlements and into the workforce. However, “welfare benefits continue to outpace the income that most recipients can expect to earn from an entry-level job,” the study authors said. “And the balance between welfare and work may actually have grown worse in recent years.”

This is clearly a huge problem in America. There's nothing wrong with a little help from the government so people can squeeze by, but when welfare benefits continue to outpace an entry level job income, that's when the government needs to put their foot down. Why would anyone be willing to work at an entry level job for less money than what you could collect sitting at home? Like it said in the article, there's very little incentive to work. This is killing America's work ethic.

Is Welfare Too Cushy?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-11/is-welfare-too-cushy

Are generous welfare benefits keeping Americans from working for a living? The argument that welfare displaces work isn’t new, of course. It was a favorite of President Ronald Reagan. Cato itself did a major study in 1995 making essentially the same point. “Welfare benefits continue to outpace the income that most recipients can expect to earn from an entry-level job, and the balance between welfare and work may actually have grown worse in recent years,” they write. The authors compare a nonworking family that gets a full suite of benefits to a working family that gets no benefits and conclude, not surprisingly, that the nonworking family would be better off. 

Obviously, welfare is keeping people from working. Why would someone want to work at an entry-level job when they could simply register for welfare and collect more money from the government than they would actually working? Cuts have to be made on these programs because it's not right for a working person to make less money than a welfare recipient. Like I said before, welfare programs were created to help people, not to live off of them. Clearly, this is an incentive to not work for a living.

Taxing hard-up Americans at 95%

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21585010-americas-welfare-state-not-working-nearly-well-it-should-taxing-hard-up-americans

Ms. Devilma says that many of the welfare recipients she knows are reluctant to seek work or an education. Life in the system is comfortable enough that people can easily live off of welfare. Ms. Devilma admits that if it were not for her son and the recent expiry of her cash aid, she would rather live on welfare than take an entry-level job at McDonald’s. She considers it unsuited for her level of education. Some worry that welfare is encouraging idleness. Paul Ryan, the Republicans’ congressional budget guru, frets that America’s safety net could become “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency”

I have to agree with Paul Ryan, right here is the biggest problem we have in America. The welfare programs are giving so much money to people that they can live off of it. This is not the point of welfare programs. They are suppose to HELP people who struggle to come up with money to pay for necessities. These programs weren't created for people to sit around, do nothing, and collect money from the government. Some hard working Americans have salaries that pay them about $30,000 a year and if people on welfare are collecting almost as much as working people, this has to come to an end. To sum it all up, welfare is discouraging work and people are becoming lazier with no ambition to work.