Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The Good Benefits Of Working For The Government



The government supplies those with financial difficulties with many benefits of financial aid such as Medicaid, Food Stamps, Social Security, and Disability. The importance of these aids are substantially important to those that receive the benefits of the governments help whom in many ways do not have the ability to provide for themselves or loved ones properly. Many of these benefits help the elderly which are still able to live on their own and that is a good thing because the elderly deserve to receive these benefits. I believe this because I know my grandfather worked for many years till he was eighty-one years old when he retired and now receives these benefits and the amount which he receives is not a lot of money but he survives with what he is given because he has earned what he now receives.


There are families also that have disabled veterans or disabled workers which benefit from government financial aid agencies and because they have a disabled family member there is usually only one person financially supporting a family. Many times the disabled family member is a father and the family has five members including the mother and father and those families are then dependent on the mothers income which many times is very minimal causing the family to stress and worry about paying bills living in a small apartment. Another family that usually benefits from the financial aids of the government is single parent households which are usually single mothers supporting her and three children. In households of single parents, they are usually receiving Medicaid and Food Stamps which maintain a life style of food on the table and a roof above their heads. But people living off of government assistance are usually not living a luxurious life style which they dream of and children that come from broken or financially unstable homes most of the time do not break the cycle of financial struggle which they have been born into. The importance of government financial aid is to help people that struggle like the examples which I have presented and through these many aids we hope for a brighter future and push to the children of the families which need these financial support help.
   

The ways the United States government can improve these financial aid agencies to prevent people that may take advantage of the assistance which the government is providing them with is to do deeper background checks such as companies that research people whom are being considered for a job. Many companies now research candidates for jobs like going onto the candidates social media accounts to see what kind of person they really are and why shouldn’t the government do that to people which are being financially helped by the government. The government should improve the agencies by improving its effectiveness in the actual communities which are lower income and may receive the benefits more frequently than others by increasing its ways of maintaining records of people that come to apply for financial aid. If agencies keep good records of people that apply and receive financial support from aid offices then the agencies will be able to function smoother and quicker than what they do now. The greatest way that the government could improve the financial aid agencies is to help improve the communities that these services serve. Through improving the communities we must begin by improving the education system, encourage higher education, improve the benefits of the families by increasing wages and better jobs, and the largest improvement would be to influence communities with encouragement of a greater lifestyle than what they were given.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Medicaid For Helping People

Not everyone is America is well off. Now let’s look closer at the term “well off”, for some people it’s having dinner every night and breakfast every morning. People and the government of America don’t want to see people starving in the street, young and old. The government changes that problem with certain solutions designed to help the disadvantaged in America. With that there are many controversies of people cheating the system. The government is working on solving that problem yet it is still prevalent today. Some different strategies will provide benefits to the people who need them and cut out the majority of the people who do not.

Programs in the United States are founded to help out the needy. The programs are founded to ensure that every family has the opportunity to have basic human rights. The financially disadvantaged people of America need help, and instead of seeing these people struggle, the government comes in to help out. With food stamps, Medicare, or Life Line assistance people can help gain their own independence again. That is why the programs were created anyway, to help people. These programs though are not foolproof. Many people have found ways to piggy back off the government with these programs. This is a very bad for the people who actually need the help as it draws attention to all the wrong of the program instead of all the good. The people who cheat the system hurt the people who are trying to do the right thing. They take away the money that other people need to live everyday without disaster. Sure many people are taking advantage of the system but is it not better to see dead bodies on the street?



There are many people who claim to be needy, but they do not need the assistance given to the other people in need. I believe that creating a list of things people can use food stamps towards will help combat that. People should not be able to buy cigarettes and tobacco with food stamps. Food stamps should only go to toiletries, food, and other basic necessities. This way people cannot go and buy liquor, or harmful smoking products with their food stamps. Not just food stamps, but other programs as well. The majority of the programs provide financial assistance in some way. The only financial assistance people truly need is the necessities, not a television set or a microwave.

With the change in what people can buy with government assistance, there should be fewer instances of people taking advantage of the government. Completely shutting down the entire program is the wrong choice to solve the problem of cheating the system. It would impact the citizens in need more negatively than in a positive way. America should continue to help out the economically disadvantaged, for it helps out people who truly need it. Many people will be thankful of the programs in the future, and I hope that these programs are here to stay.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Where to find Public Food Stamps

My family has always struggled to get by. Sure, we’ve gone through periods of relative success, but overall, it’s been tough. Both my mother and my father, who are divorced, have, at one time, taken advantage of the SNAP program. If we hadn’t had access to it, we would have been eating in soup kitchens. I owe that program a massive debt.

There is a stigma attached to government benefit programs, as if asking for assistance is dishonorable. A lot of people seem to think that financial challenges are a direct result of the person. Maybe they weren’t working hard enough, or maybe they were bad budgeters, or maybe they just don’t deserve to be financially stable. One study actually showed that people tend to categorize homeless people as objects, not people. I think that this way of thinking is entirely unfair to the people who suffer from these challenges. From personal experience, I can say that financial difficulties are almost always not a result of laziness. External circumstances often dictate our lives, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill.

Providing assistance for people who need it is, in my opinion, an essential service in order to achieve a healthy, well-functioning society. If private companies and individuals won’t provide this service, then we must look to a higher authority (in this case, the government). Though I believe in a small government, considering today’s societal structure and people’s seeming unwillingness to help those they don’t know, I think that government benefit programs are indispensable. A great example is http://www.welfarecellphone.com

However, as with anything, there are ways these programs could be improved. I think the most important change that could be made is to put more of the government’s budget towards assistance programs. Currently, the vast majority of the United States budget goes to corporate subsidies, far more than goes to military defense or padding senators’ paychecks. I think that this money is egregiously misspent; I would rather shop at local businesses anyway. People pay taxes because they want the services that their taxes pay for, such as financial assistance for college or free schooling. More money should be put towards assistance programs so that the people who take advantage of them don’t have to make bad choices due to lack of funds. The food stamp program especially does not give enough money to those who need it, and my family often had to make less healthy food choices because they were less expensive. A bigger budget would help alleviate this situation, even if it wouldn’t fix it entirely.

Government assistance, though stigmatized, is necessary in order for our country to function correctly. There are changes that can be made to them, but even as they are, they have helped many people—including my family—to get back on their feet and start life with a blank slate without having to worry about where their next meal will come from, or whether they will have a roof over their heads. I sincerely hope that people as a whole begin to realize the importance of benefit programs and help to contribute to their success.