Welfare as a privilege: argumentative analysis

Welfare is postulated as a privilege, but to many in the know, they urge that the term is a misnomer and, far from it being a privilege, it cripples the recipient.

The definition of welfare is actually too vast and ill-rounded for it to be pinned down. It is sometimes termed 'social solidarity' (The National Review, 2005) and the best definition we can give it is that the government or non-government entities, or a combination of the two, provides certain 'privileges' or distribution of goods to the less privileged members of society in order to accord them, at least, the fundamentals of living. These goods (such as monetary payments, subsidies and vouchers, health services or housing) come with certain provisos, such as means testing or other conditions, and the category of people who receive it are very sharply and critically delineated. The system, too, is intended to be only for a temporary amount of time with the recipient being constantly inspected by the government to ensure that he is using the money according to government conditions and that conditions for him being recipient still apply (Gilens, 1996).

Welfare boons may be funded directly by the government; in social insurance models, they are funded by the welfare scheme. The term 'welfare state' is used to describe a state in which the government provides the majority of welfare services. Social insurance-type welfare schemes are funded on contributory basis by members of the social insurance program. Contributions may be reserved for a particular member or they may be pooled to benefit the scheme as a whole. Participation in such schemes may either be compulsory or subsidized to the extent that eligible participants can afford to join. Examples of these schemes in the U.S.A. are Medicare, Medicaid and the Social Security programs (Schram, 2005).

Welfare, as per institution, differs from country to country but is generally accorded to the unemployed, the seriously ill and disabled, the elderly, those with dependent children, and veterans.

In short, welfare is meant as tool to eliminate the stigma of 'charity' (Schram, 2005), namely that the money or privileges accorded to the recipient are attached with conditions and strings and that the privileges are only accorded certain individuals who have to prove themselves worthy of deserving this, and then only for a temporary amount of time.

Having spoken to recipients of welfare, I can testify that it is no privilege to receive welfare. Firstly, biased individuals peek into each and every corner of your life, interfering into what you can and cannot buy and how you use the money. The ordeal can be embarrassing at best, humiliating at worst, frequently impeding those who most deserve it from entering the process. Indeed, it has been discovered that recipients who least qualify (some of them, in fact being quite wealthy) are scripted into the welfare system.

Conditions placed by social workers impede candidates from arbitrarily using the money as they wish or drafting their life as they wish causing them to be puppets of a caustic, cold and disheartening system. This alone -- the fact that the money is begrudgingly and heartlessly accorded - made the situation all the worse.

The conditions too can impede people from looking for jobs and getting on with their lives for bureaucracy can be involved and complex, aside from which one has to line in long queues at certain parts of the day (usually the most productive) and engage in certain bureaucratic formulas before one receives the pittance of welfare that is one's due. In the meantime, one may have conducted successful job-hunting during that period.

Welfare also seriously demotes one's esteem. I have read more than one Black memoir, and heard from more than one disadvantaged person that they would rather work than go on welfare. The reason, inevitably given in that welfare corrodes their esteem and set off a self-prophetic passage where the person, being stigmatized by being recipient of humiliating treatment, goes on to perceive himself as 'failure'; and this has a resounding effect on his work performance and endeavor to find work. On the other hand, someone who succeeds, even to minutiae, of fending for himself gains a degree of pride and self-accomplishment that no amount of welfare can replace. It seems to me, in other words, that the self-efficacy that effectuates in a successful and contributive personality is one that comes as a result of perseverance in one's chosen labor rather than relying on government welfare. Charity -- and welfare falls into that category -- erodes the feelings of self-efficacy so necessary for perseverance and progress.

Black personalities have aplenty lamented the fact that Blacks of an earlier generation were more self-reliant and integral than Blacks of now whom they perceive as more cushioned and softened by government offers of welfare. This makes them less resilient to hardship and more prone to sliding into a frivolous, insipid way of life (The National Review, 2005). Indeed, critics of the social insurance-type welfare schemes criticize these schemes for affecting work incentives. An example in kind was the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (ADFC) program where a particular amount per recipient was guaranteed, but for every dollar that the recipient earned the monthly stipend was decreased by a corresponding amount (Gilens, 1996). This naturally reduced the motivation of recipients to work and for this reasons that particular program was ultimately reformed. However, the same or similar conditions are applied to many other welfare programs naturally compelling recipients to work less in order not to be eliminated from their welfare.

Mathematically obtuse research by Hallerod and Larsson (2008) divided poverty into two categories: There were those who were genuinely radically poor, defined as generating an income below 60 per cent of the median income and then there were those who were termed 'material deprivation' meaning that their poverty hinged on them having to relinquish a certain level of consumption of goods and services.