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Welfare first entered America in the 1960’s as a program that provided financial assistance for orphans and widows. Recently, welfare has become a primary source of income for single mothers, high school dropouts, and the unemployed, which American taxpayers are funding. However, Americans remain ignorant about where their money goes. Because of the continuously increasing number of welfare recipients, the government rarely tracks the welfare check investments. Problems such as recipients neglecting to buy food for their families and buying drugs instead cause great controversy. It raises questions of whether the welfare system is doing what it has promised to do, whether the government handouts can actually eliminate or decrease poverty and help people get their lives on track. Although the intentions of welfare are to help the less fortunate out of poverty, research demonstrates that the system is creating more problems than it is solving.
In 1996, Bill Clinton passed the Welfare reform, which promised to change welfare for the better. New government requirements included forcing recipients to work, when single mothers bear illegitimate children while on welfare, the amount of money on the check remains consistent no matter how many children she has, and a time limit of five years of government benefits takes effect (Handler 124). If the recipients followed the abovementioned rules entirely, the welfare system, indeed, would recover. The reform, however, also has countless exceptions. For example, welfare recipients in each state are exempt from the requirements. Bradley Lenz, author and expert on the subject of welfare states “having only certain people follow the requirements is not only unfair to other recipients, but creates a mass amount of confusion” (Fanning 32.) Also, even with the five year limitation, five million American families are on the brink of their eighth year. Even with the workfare requirement, three million of the eight million...