Can Entitlement Lead to a Form of Welfare Addiction?

COMMENTARY

As a volunteer, I recently outlined the steps of transitioning off federal welfare assistance to a pair of families who had been hired as full-time employees. What has become a common reaction, concerned about losing welfare benefits, they did not intend to keep their new jobs. My knowledge of this mindset goes beyond volunteering, as I have nieces and nephews participating.

So, can entitlement lead to a form of welfare addiction?

Addiction takes many forms and, of course, is mostly associated with drugs, gambling or alcohol. Previously it didn’t occur to me that I was witnessing a form of entitlement dependency on welfare payments that amounted to an addiction that leads to long-term welfare enrollment.

Historically, since Lyndon B. Johnson created the new social ideal, the number of recipients has only continued to increase over the decades. I recall my dad having to move out long enough to allow the social workers’ inspection to determine that there was no working male over the age of 18 residing in our house. Once cleared, he would come back home.

I was one of the lucky ones, because my dad didn’t abandon us. But the fact is, a lot of dads didn’t return, which split the family unit. An unintended consequence was that many people chose addiction to welfare over self-sufficiency.

The entitlement mentality is nothing new, but it continues to serve as a crutch, stopping people from climbing out of poverty. I have encountered two and three generations of African American families in urban areas living off welfare benefits. Unfortunately, like most addictions, the ending can be virtually impossible. It hinders any type of job training development, affects the ability to provide healthy food for children and could be the gateway to other addictions such as drugs or alcohol. It also serves as an economic incentive for the continued creation of single families.

U.S. Census Bureau 2019 data by race and ethnicity indicates that Black children are the most likely to live in single-parent homes. What’s hidden is the generational education of utilizing welfare benefits passed from parent to child. This is what is meant by the term “welfare babies.”

The idea of offering cash payments for having a child needs to be stopped. A new formula has to be developed to qualify for such benefits. It needs to be a combination of the following: participation in job training; a certain number of in-person job interviews; maintaining part-time job status for a limited time; and securing a full-time position by a certain point. There need to be tax incentives for newlywed couples or two-parent households in order to secure an increased level of take-home money to avoid addiction.

Entitlement addiction has spread throughout families and this country. And there is no end in sight. If LBJ’s goal was to eliminate poverty, today’s welfare state was not supposed to happen.

Greg Raleigh, is the founder of True-Voices, seeking to establish a new platform that will share the voices of people of all ages and cultures in order to offer a combination of innovative new ideas and traditional solutions to address social issues. Raleigh was a writing fellow with America’s Future and regularly provides editorial/opinion letters to news outlets on varying issues. He can be reached on Twitter.