After watching I, Daniel Blake in this class earlier in the semester I felt moved to take a deeper look into the welfare system. I became curious about some of the most typical reasons why people are unable to secure benefits when they need them. Some reasons that I found and will explain in this essay are that welfare services are too difficult to enroll for, some programs have biases against married couples, and will give them less aid than singles, or people who genuinely need aid but do not qualify for it.
The social welfare system is meant to help those with financial instability, get them back on track and self-sufficient again. Still, it isn’t easy to receive aid if the person in need cannot figure out how to apply for benefits. Many who report struggling with their applications cite applying for food stamps, or SNAP benefits, as one of the most stressful because of the expensive fines and jail time associated with reporting false information on the form. Some Latina or Hispanic people also report difficulties with applying for aid, possibly due to language barrier issues or because they have to deal with different eligibility requirements as non-citizens. In the film I, Daniel Blake we see Daniel struggle to apply for his aid because he does not have easy access to a computer nor does he know how to use one very well. I am sure that there are many senior citizens like Daniel who also struggle to apply for their benefits because they cannot use a computer well either.
People who are elderly, non-English speaking, and technologically inept are not the only ones who feel excluded from the welfare system. One complaint that I saw repeated throughout my research is that many couples would like to get married but chose not to because they want to maintain the benefits provided to them by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF. The specific policy that keeps most couples from tying the knot is the marriage promotion policy, which was created to promote marriage and strong families. If someone is receiving welfare benefits and then decides they want to marry someone who has a higher income than them, even if that “higher income” is still incredibly low, the person receiving aid will lose some—if not all—assistance they previously received. This leads to many couples living at or around the poverty line choosing to cohabitate unmarried instead of making it official. The policy is meant to encourage a lack of dependence on welfare for families, but it ultimately backfired.
Like married couples, some people need benefits but do not receive them because they are not eligible. In the case of SNAP benefits, whether or not someone is eligible is typically based on their gross monthly income, net income, and assets being worth under a certain threshold. Some groups are never eligible for SNAP benefits regardless of their income or assets. Some of these people would include people who are currently on strike, undocumented immigrants, some college students who are taking slightly too many hours to be considered part-time, and in certain states people with drug-related felony convictions. While this is not always the case, many of these people are groups that are prone to poverty or financial struggles and would benefit greatly from the aid provided by SNAP.
This was just a very brief overview of some of the obstacles that stand in the way of people receiving what could be life-saving services ultimately. I think it is important to note that while researching for this paper it was much easier to find information about reasons why it is more difficult to get off welfare than it is to get on. The system is inaccessible to some and hard to get approved for initially but it seems that it is not designed to be easy to quit either. The system typically gives people enough to get by but not enough to flourish.
https://www.cato.org/publications/welfare-reform
https://digitalcommons.law.udc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=udclr
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559763/
That's a good collection of sources. Because people at low incomes must have consumption levels that are significantly higher than their earned incomes, but persons with middle and high incomes must pay taxes so that their net consumption is significantly below their earned income (I’ll check my taxes, but last year our estimated total contributions to local, state, and federal governments was about 30% of our income), there is an income range (probably from about $30,000 to $50,000 where loss of benefits more-or-less matches increases in earned income so that there are very slight increases in consumption for increases in earned incomes. This is somewhat a mathematical necessity, but the ways income increases create benefit decreases ought to be structured so that you never have loss of benefits that exceed 66¢ for every $1 earned.
I think it's pretty easy to get off Medicaid. Doesn't Medicaid send recipients a letter asking for proof that someone still qualifies, and if you don't respond with evidence of your low income within a certain time, you lose your Medicaid benefits? That is how it used to work. Other benefits may be more difficult to get off.
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