Does the U.S. need to revamp its social welfare policy?

Not too many years ago, most Americans felt that social welfare programs, paid for with their tax dollars, were much too liberal, encouraging people to be lazy, not work and simply skate along, living off government funding. True, there were such individuals who took advantage of the generous social welfare policy of the time. However, the vast majority of people receiving the benefits of the social welfare policy programs, would rather not to have found themselves in this situation.

Most people want to work and earn a living. It's a matter of dignity and being able to feel like productive members of society. However, in the last ten years, these social programs have been cut to the bone, with the result that homelessness has increased, right along with despair and hopelessness. There are families living with their children in the family car! This is a sad state of affairs in a country as rich as America.

Today, many people live in fear of being laid off from jobs they've held for years. Employers find it expedient to outsource these people's work to foreign countries, where the labor is performed far more cheaply.

Now we also find that people who bought their first home a few years ago are now faced with foreclosure and possibly, homelessness. We know know that many mortgage lenders urged these home loan applicants to misstate their income in order to qualify. What happens to these people? There is no social welfare policy to help in a situation like this.

Every day, we hear of laid-off workers, particularly in 'blue-collar' jobs. Maybe your neighbor has worked all his life in an auto factory and has no other marketable skills. The current social welfare policies do not include retraining programs to get that family back to a productive state.

If that family ends up receiving welfare from the state, they may well be doomed to a life of poverty. The amount of aid they are qualified to receive will simply not make ends meet. Jobs are scarce enough, but our auto worker is unlikely to find a job that will feed his family. Without a social welfare policy that includes education, he may never get back on his feet.

The social implications are frightening. Poverty increases the incidence of divorce, suicide, crime, drug abuse and a host of other such undesirable events.

Our government sponsored a highly successful work program, back in the 1970s. Unskilled, unemployed people received on the job training for a one-year period. The employer was only required to pay $1 per hour, while the government made up the difference to a minimum wage level. Many people learned a trade. Teach a man to fish ...

Perhaps it's time to re-examine our priorities and draw up a charter for a revamped social welfare policy that supports all of our citizens, such that these tragedies do not occur.