How to Solve the Welfare Cliff Paper Example

The largest item on the United States budgetary expenditure allocation is social welfare. Economists expect the allocated amount to rise on an annual basis due to the increase in population and the number of people trapped in the welfare cliff. The welfare cliff is the effect created by the incremental spending in social benefits (Aclock, 2014). In other words, numerous dependents of welfare benefits prefer to avoid working hard and chase promotions because they will losing their welfare benefits which are higher compared to the net increase in their new income levels. Increased salaries attract taxation which lowers their net income compared to the net benefits that they are likely to lose if they get into a higher income bracket. The lower working class of low income earners will not risk getting better jobs because they will mean that they forego key benefits like subsidized housing, medical cover, food stamps, education etc. They remain trapped in this welfare cliff where they would rather remain dependent on government subsidies than get paid a higher taxable salary that will take the benefits away. There are different approaches through which different parties can overcome the welfare cliff.

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The welfare cliff can be mitigated through political goodwill in which policy makers can agree on the best approaches of solving the welfare cliff. This can be done through the budgetary allocation in which the amount spent on welfare can be reduced to take people off the government benefits program and encourage them to be financially independent. Policy makers can as well influence legislative policies that would encourage dependents to break away from the social welfare benefits. The current political atmosphere seems to be encouraging more people to enroll in the benefits program going by the approved budgetary amount.

The government would take a significant percentage of the poor American population from the welfare cliff by embracing equality in all social aspects of life. Quality of education, better healthcare, a conducive economic atmosphere, and better jobs would go a long way in encouraging people not to rely on the social welfare program (Aclock, 2014). Neighborhoods considered as poor and the various minority communities within the American society should not be marginalized but also given priority in social amenities and quality public service. This would lift their standard of living and make it unnecessary for them to require welfare benefits. People need better jobs whose salaries will suffice despite the loss of their benefits.

The United States citizens trapped in the welfare cliff can overcome it by challenging themselves to be self-reliant and get off government benefits. Personal pride should push people to seek better paying opportunities at every promotion level until they get into a scale that will make them independent of the welfare program. Financial goals and personal discipline should make the lower class aspire to withdraw from the different welfare programs in which they are enrolled. No single individual wants to be always on their knees begging for items that they can provide for themselves if they worked hard enough to achieve their life-long dreams.

The Federal government should do away with explicit objective of expanding the welfare program because not every person who registers for the program is in need of social aid. There are cases of people who can afford some of the items for which they are forced to enroll. People who can sufficiently feed themselves should not be put on the food stamp program to help them gradually overcome the welfare cliff. Government agencies should not dupe people into believing that the welfare program is beneficial to their communities because it only entraps them further.

The zeal with which the federal government agencies are enrolling citizens to the welfare program is baffling because this has extended to encompass immigrants who have arrived in the United States. Undocumented immigrants face a dilemma in their citizenship status but the government has gone ahead to waive the legal requirements that make immigrants qualify for welfare benefits. New immigrants are encouraged to seek social welfare to benefit from the periodic stipends from the government. All these activities should be abolished to discourage dependence on government welfare programs. It is ironic when the government collaborates with foreign administrations like that of Mexico to increase the enrollment of food stamps among foreigners.

More people should be locked out of the welfare program by imposing stricter eligibility rules for enrolling for government benefits. This will help many dependents of the welfare program to think outside the box and find other means of meeting their needs and hence escape the welfare cliff (Harvey & Conyers, 2016). Increased budgetary allocations should call for tighter eligibility criteria to help arrest the bulging budget requirements to support the federal benefits. The asset test together with the work requirements for food stamp should be reinstated in the welfare program to make it difficult for more people to enroll for welfare.

Policy makers, economic experts, and various stakeholders in public and private entities should work closely together to ameliorate the overall effects of the welfare cliff. Ameliorating entails the transformation of something that has bad impact to have a beneficial effect on the users. The social welfare benefits should be repackaged in such a way that they encourage personal growth and economic empowerment where dependents on government benefits seek to become their own providers without the intervention of the state. Social welfare ought to be tailored to prepare people for better working opportunities instead of getting stuck in relying on government support.

The lower working class citizens who comprise of the low income earners in the American society should be sensitized on the best practices and government policies that will enable them to work towards their financial security and building family assets (Edin, 2015). They should be made aware of the various options and practical financial alternatives which they can explore to ensure that they have a long term realistic chance of getting out of government dependence. It will take them off the welfare cliff and propel them to a higher standard of living.

Government agencies can also coordinate closely within their various departments to ensure that there are enough incentives that promote financial security among those enrolled in the federal government welfare programs. The core objective of the benefits from the government should not be to trap the dependents in a welfare trap but to gradually take them off the welfare cliff by ensuring there are financial incentives in place for them to be self-sufficient to themselves and their families. The perpetual cycle of seeking government help should be broken through consistent policies (Tirado, 2015).

As can be seen from the above talking points, it is clear the increase in welfare budget and the additional enrollments to the welfare program can only contribute to the further entrapment to the government benefits program. However, there is a myriad of options whose implementation can provide solutions to the welfare cliff. Political goodwill, policy formulation, and the amelioration of the welfare effects are some of the issues that the policy makers can implement towards eliminating the welfare cliff. Individual dependents also need to uphold their personal pride and work hard to escape this reliance on government subsidies. Government agencies should also review their policies and go slow on their welfare enrollment programs to get as many people off the welfare cliff as possible.

References

Aclock, C. (2014). Introducing social policy. Routledge.

Edin, K. (2015). $2.00 a day: Living on almost nothing in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015.

Harvey, P. D., & Conyers, L. (2016). The human cost of welfare: How the system hurts the people it's supposed to help. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger.

Tirado, L. (2015). Hand to mouth: Living in bootstrap America. New York: Berkley Books.