Welfare Myths: Fact or Fiction?
Exploring the Truth about Welfare (Published 1996)
MYTH: Families stay on welfare for a long time and don't make any effort to get off.
FACT: Less than half of the families that receive AFDC receive it for more than 36 months overall and most families receive aid for no more than two years at a time.
MYTH: People become dependent on welfare because welfare is available to them.
FACT: Leading researchers agree there is no evidence substantiating the "welfare trap" theory.
MYTH: Welfare benefits for families provide them with enough to meet all their basic needs.
FACT: AFDC and Food Stamp benefits combined provide less than a poverty level income in all states and their value has been going steadily downward for many years.
MYTH: Even if AFDC benefits and Food Stamps don't provide enough to meet daily living needs, the shortfall is made up for by all the other benefits these families receive.
FACT: Most of the other major benefits available to poor families are available to only limited numbers of families and they do not add enough to family income to enable families to meet all their basic nonmedical needs.
MYTH: The differences in AFDC benefit levels around the country are due to cost of living differences and/or differences in wage rates.
FACT: Numerous studies have concluded that the range in benefit levels is far greater than any differences in cost of living around the country and wage variation is less than half as much as the benefit variation.
MYTH: Women receiving AFDC have lots of kids and go on having kids after they begin receiving aid, and that's why they need aid.
FACT: The most typical family size is a mother and one child and the birthrate among women receiving AFDC is lower than that in the rest of the population.
MYTH: The reason people need welfare is because they won't work.
FACT: The only adults receiving AFDC are those who are caring for children and over two-thirds of them have recent work experience from employment while receiving aid or before they applied for aid.
MYTH: Families wouldn't need assistance if they would just go to work.
FACT: Many families who are in the workplace cannot make it on their earnings alone and need assistance in addition in order to have any decent standard of living.
FACT: The evidence contradicts the "welfare magnet" theory and also shows that poor people move less than others and, when they do move, move in the same direction as the rest of the population.
MYTH: Almost all of the families receiving AFDC are Black or Hispanic.
FACT: Many more White families than Black families or Hispanic families are helped by the AFDC program.
MYTH: Nonmarital births have exploded, and welfare is the reason.
FACT: The nonmarital birthrate is less than 5% and there is no reliable evidence that welfare is a primary reason for the growth in nonmarital birthrates.
MYTH: Child support reform can eliminate most child poverty and most of the need for AFDC.
FACT: Even if there were no deadbeat parents, most poor children would still be poor, and most children who need AFDC would still need it.
MYTH: Large numbers of families are receiving AFDC benefits they are not entitled to and the government isn't doing anything about it.
FACT: The evidence indicates that only a small percentage of recipients are overpaid and that most of these errors are due to honest mistakes, and there are rigorous programs in place to limit all overpayments and weed out fraud.
MYTH: Spending on welfare programs to aid needy families is a major part of the federal budget.
FACT: Spending on all the public assistance programs that provide poor families with aid to meet their basic living needs, including medical needs, amounts to about 6% of the total federal budget.
These facts were found at:
http://www.welfarelaw.org/mythtoc.html