Liberty Expose: A Working Welfare (Part 3)
Through a conservative lens, welfare assistance is typically portrayed as an ever-growing leviathan that has, like rust, slowly eroded the American ideal of hard work and fostered a culture of dependency. However, this conception sidesteps the emerging political reality discussed in the two previous installments of this series; namely, the rise of the working class right and the uncomfortable fact that many of these lower-income Republican voters not only rely, but depend, on some form of government assistance derived from our current welfare system.
For decades, the Republican answer to the nearly century old question of welfare has bounced between two camps: either cut the programs outright or quietly accept the prevalence and expansion of said programs as a political “necessary evil”, while condemning their existence to colleagues and the public at large. But neither of these tried-and-true approaches have solved the underlying issue and fall inadequately short at addressing the problems directly plaguing American citizens. A growing coalition of lower-income Republicans can’t live on rhetoric alone, and any further expansion of welfare assistance would undermine the argument of fostering dependency that the Republican party has championed for so long. A true Catch-22 indeed.
If the Republican Party, and conservative ideology as a whole, seeks to firmly establish itself as the bedrock of the working-class, than a different solution towards tackling the welfare system must be proposed. Something that will satisfy both budgetary minded politicians in Washington and the impoverished voters that won them their seats in the last election. A safety net that doesn’t sever assistance while ensuring welfare remains a temporary stabilizer instead of a permanent dependency.
A Problem Beyond Payment
Welfare assistance may account for a staggering amount of the federal budget, but Washington is not the only party that pays a price in the transaction of aid and relief. For many welfare recipients, the cost imposed on them is less tangible than dollars and cents. It is something human in nature, unquantifiable and priceless. It’s the gradual loss of dignity from waiting in long lines at a county’s administrative office, filing endless paperwork and overcoming the red tape of proving one’s own hardships to a complex network of bureaucratic agencies and often impersonal government officials.
Whether you’re a single-parent trying to provide for your children, or a college student who lost their job during the COVID-19 shutdowns, the process of applying for welfare assistance is seldom efficient or pain-free. More often than not it is arduous, confusing and at times, arguably demeaning through a variety of “administrative burdens”. Politicians constantly debate over the amount of aid to be doled out, the cost imposed to the treasury and the limits of federal spending, but rarely take into account how welfare assistance is experienced by those who actually depend on it. The success, or failure, of the American welfare system is measured through varying statistics rather than whether it preserves the dignity of poverty stricken citizens or connects them to meaningful work and a steady footing towards pursuing their own American Dream.
“Instead of working with the individual and determining that person’s goals, we often are more concerned with programmatic requirements, leading to an overly complex system that is difficult for all of us, state government, policy makers, and our caseworkers to navigate. If it is difficult for us, imagine how it must seem to an individual or family seeking services.” —Nick Lyon
In other words, policy makers often fixate on easily measurable variables and statistics, ignoring what actually matters and improvements of quality of life for those on the ground level.
So, as pertains to the welfare state in America, what can improve the experience both for policymakers and individuals applying for assistance? If the shortcomings of our current welfare system are merely government expenditure, potential humiliation and bureaucratic complexity, the answer seems simple enough: cold, hard cash. In 1962, American economist Milton Friedman debuted his proposition for what he referred to as a Negative Income Tax (NIT). Postulated as an alternative to the traditional welfare system, Friedman’s suggested system would prevent households falling below a certain income threshold from paying any income tax. Instead, these households would receive payments from the federal government scaled to their income. Lesser income per household would result in higher payments, with benefits decreasing as household income grew in size.
Similar proposals to Friedman’s NIT have surfaced since the 1970s, mainly in the form of some sort of Universal Basic Income (UBI). UBI would provide every citizen with a guaranteed and unconditional payment, regardless of employment status. Many American politicians have entertained the idea of implementing a UBI, with 2020 presidential hopeful Andrew Yang centering his campaign around the concept, and numerous high-profile Republicans and Democrats flirting with the idea during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But although both of the aforementioned proposals would dismantle the bureaucratic chokehold on the welfare system and satisfy the budgetary concerns of Washington, neither address the larger issues looming overhead. Issues such as the degradation of the virtues of independence, dignity and self-reliance through work, a financial dependence on government assistance and the cyclical burden of poverty. Such proposals of direct-cash assistance merely bandages the problem instead of suturing the wound of welfare for good.
A Working Welfare
If, at the core of the issue, the dilemma of our modern welfare system isn’t cost, but its severance from work and purpose, then the answer cannot be found in larger checks, an expansion of existing programs, or simply throwing more billions of dollars at the wall and hoping something sticks. Previous reforms have arguably done little but kick the ball downfield to the next generation of Americans. A permanent solution must fundamentally reconnect welfare assistance to work itself. One that delivers welfare assistance and the benefits entailed on a local and state level, both for individuals and the communities they reside in.
The organism of American welfare is, for all intents and purposes, already operating as a federalist system. The federal government delivers funding to programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) while the usage and implementation of said funds is orchestrated on a state level. Yet this federal funding is spread amidst a byzantine web of agencies, and potentially benefits the agencies and private business interests more than impoverished Americans. Furthermore, out of the combined $37.5 billion of federal TANF and state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) funds in FY 2024, only 21.8% were used for basic assistance needs. Work requirements are an integral part of applying for welfare assistance, but 44 states used less than 15% of this funding towards work, education, and job training actives in the same year. Bureaucratic and administrative costs accounted for $2.3 billion in FY 2024, with the administrative spending of California and New York eclipsing the total block grant allotment of every other state. Surely there must be a better, less costly and more efficient answer?
A conservative alternative to the welfare state could construct upon the current federalist framework while ensuring federal funding reaches the needs of impoverished Americans and the states they call home. Rather than expanding existing programs or layering in new work-requirements, Congress should entrench welfare firmly in the realm of state legislation and locally focused work programs. Under such a model, the federal government would provide funding, establish broad standards and provide oversight, while allowing states to develop and manage programs directly tailored to their own local economic conditions and needs.
Welfare work requirements, and the lack thereof, were a bipartisan criticism that led to the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) reforms of President Clinton. Instead of mandating that applicants provide documentation and navigate mountains of paperwork, a process that has resulted in the elimination of benefits for one-in-eight SNAP recipients in 2024, the work requirements would be the work itself. States could offer employment positions catered towards needs within their own communities: infrastructure revitalization, public works campaigns, disaster relief and the like. An intrinsic element of TANF was to ensure marriage and family stability, yet less than 1% of total funds were implemented towards promoting fatherhood and two-parent family programs. States could direct funds into daycare and childcare centers, employing parents as staff to promote not only employment but also a direct involvement in the lives of their own children and other families within their communities. Trade apprenticeship and educational programs could be implemented as well, allowing enrollees in these state-administered initiatives to obtain a valuable and financially viable skill during their working tenure in an era when such jobs are are in short supply and high demand. Participants in these state-run welfare works programs would receive compensation in the form of government in-kind assistance a la SNAP, but also direct wages to cement welfare assistance with productive and meaningful activity.
Such a model would allow the continuation and functional coherence of existing programs such as TANF or SNAP, by letting work in the envisioned state-directed programs to serve as the necessary qualification for assistance. Private employment would nevertheless remain an avenue of access, but for those unable to find employment amidst staggering layoffs, the proposed process presents an unprecedented boon.
To guarantee these programs remain an economic failsafe instead of a permanent crutch, Congress could attach clearly defined sunset clauses and unconditional, required progress benchmarks to federal funding. The current welfare system is an undeniable quagmire, and the fruits of these programs should not produce a series of highways or hospitals with no construction end-date in sight. Strict federal oversight under embedded clauses would also prevent welfare fraud, a phenomenon that has recently siphoned funds from low-income Mississippians and Minnesotans, and ensure that the dispersion of federal funding doesn’t devolve into a widespread slush fund.
Conservatives are right to fret over the long-term consequences of overdependency on government assistance and the detriment such a reliance has on the age-old American adage of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”. But a government, let alone a political party that increasingly represents a red tide of lower-class voters, cannot wholeheartedly cut the safety-net of welfare that keeps its most downtrodden citizens afloat. It must enshrine a system of welfare that encourages dignity, promotes work and provides the economic mobility for its citizens to not only envision, but achieve a great, big, beautiful tomorrow for themselves and their families.
Because a working-class coalition requires a working welfare system.
