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Welfare should only deal with unforeseen circumstances people who dont save or do not work may not be deserving of welfare. Parents on social assistance should not have broken up with their spouses (if single parents) and where breakup was unavoidable, the absent parent should pay to keep the family off welfare. People with children should not have had them if there was any understanding that they would be poor later on. People in these circumstances should consider adoption of their children to others. Welfare should not be adequate to meet needs except on an extremely short-term basis. Adequacy will breed dependency. Work in the paid labour force is the alternative to welfare. Social citizenship is based on obtaining and retaining work. No new tax money should go to welfare programs. Welfare should be spent on the items intended. Making poor purchasing choices should be grounds for ineligibility and should be considered as potential fraud. It is wrong that people should get back on welfare after they have committed fraud. If they can do that, then there is in effect no penalty for having received public funds illegitimately. Canada has similarly experienced declines in the number of welfare recipients. The number of welfare beneficiaries in Canada has declined from a high of 3.1 million in 1994, representing an astonishing 10.7% of the population to 2.1 million in 2000, representing 6.8% of the population. Between 1994 and 2000, the number of welfare beneficiaries dropped by 1,015,000, a decline of 32.7% over six years. 50% of people on welfare are current or former drug users. How are people on welfare suppose to get ahead if they make more than the required income they will be taken off the program. So, many work very little or not at all. This is how it should be done: Make them work for every dollar they receive- cleaning parks, roads, schools, ect. Anything that will give save the state the money they otherwise would have to pay someone to do. If someone is disabled, have them prove that they can't work and keep track of their situation. If not, eliminate it completely so people get off their butts and make a difference in their lives and community. The U.S. has spent more than $3.5 trillion trying to ease the plight of the poor. The result of that massive investment is, primarily, more poverty. The welfare system is unfair to everyone: to taxpayers, who must pick up the bill for failed programs; to society, whose mediating institutions of community, church, and family increasingly are pushed aside; and, most of all, to the poor themselves. The problem here is that for many people they can either work their butts off to stay poor or they can use the system to get by...if you don't change one aspect you can't change the other. Same with children...if you can't support your own kids financially...but you keep having more and more of them..

This year the Government will spend $7.6 billion on benefits. That is more than $20 million a day. With an ageing population, rising levels of long-term welfare dependency have serious consequences for future taxpayers. It is our children who will bear the cost unless we do something about it. You know what I'm sick of? People who receive OUR hard earned tax dollars as wages for doing nothing other than laying down, spitting out a dozen babies, and driving a nicer car than I do!

I would be willing to place good money that about 85% or more that are collecting welfare do not actually need it, because they are more than able to physically work to earn money. If those were willing to go out and work their tails off and still needed assistance, then that would be cool- we all fall short from time to time. My problem lies with those that are lazy and not willing to even get a Part Time job to at least pretend they're trying to put up an effort to support themselves and their family. "But I can't find a job." There are thousands on top of thousands of jobs out there, you have to look. Temp agencies have ads in the newspaper all the time. By a margin of 87 percent to 13 percent, Americans support a "family cap." Eighty-four percent "oppose increasing a welfare mother's monthly welfare check. The federal government provides food to those in need through several types of programs, including nutrition programs, and, most importantly, the Food Stamp program. The federal government sponsors special nutrition plans to promote child welfare. Such programs, including the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), provide federal grants of money and food to nonprofit elementary and secondary schools and to child-care institutions so that they can serve milk, well-balanced meals, and snacks to the children. Additional money is provided so that free or reduced-price food and milk can be given to children of needy families. These programs provide lunch and breakfast to children in public and private nonprofit schools. Pregnant and nursing mothers and their children up to age four who live in areas that have large numbers of people who are considered nutritional risks are eligible for a special program that supplies food supplements. The Food Stamp program, as provided by the Federal Food Stamp Act of 1964, is the most significant food plan in the United States. Needy individuals or households obtain food stamps (or official coupons) that can be exchanged like money at authorized stores. Some states create electronic banking accounts that allow a person to purchase food using an electronic bank card. The person's account is debited the amount of the cash value of the stamps when he purchases food at a store. The federal government pays for the amount of the benefit received, and the states pay the costs of determining eligibility and distributing the stamps. The value of the food stamp allotment that state agencies are authorized to issue is based on the "thrifty food plan," a low-cost food budget, reduced by an amount equal to 30 per cent of the household income. Prior to 1996, poor families with children that spent more than 50 per cent of their income for housing would have had their excess shelter costs included in calculating the amount of food stamps received. The 1996 law placed a maximum amount for the food stamp deduction for shelter costs.

Public Housing Since the late 1930s, the federal government has provided funds to build public housing for the poor. Almost all programs rely on local public housing agencies created by state law or by a local government unit authorized by the state. Contracts between the Housing and Urban Development Department and the local agency provide the means for the transfer of the federal funds. Applicants for public housing must meet income requirements. So as not to penalize people for improving their financial condition, tenants usually can continue to live in public housing after they surpass the income level that admitted them to the project. As the tenant's income increases, he or she might be charged a higher rent so that the rent can be kept lower for other tenants with greater need. Federal law limits the percentage of a tenant's income that can be charged for rent in low-income housing projects.