The Truth About Welfare Fraud

With welfare fraud and abuse such a hot-button issue, there has been intense investigation and study to determine who is committing fraud and how much people are stealing.

According to the Department of Labor, the average amount of fraud in the system is around 3%. It's different in different states, but nowhere is it much above 5%. That means that even in the worst states, for every 100 people getting checks, 95 of them are honest people who actually need temporary assistance.

Temporary? Yeah, temporary assistance. Most people don't know that cash payments for welfare are time-limited in almost every state, the most common limit is 5 years, and usually this comes with strings attached, like attending job training, or things like that. Unemployment insurance typically runs out much sooner.

Because not many people are aware of that, it's a great way to spot someone who is either inventing anecdotes to make a point, is operating on bad information, or who has had their recollections colored by their own preconceived notions. For instance, the poster I'm replying to knows someone who has been collecting welfare checks for 7 years in the same apartment. In another thread, he says he's in Ohio. Only way for someone to collect benefits for that long in OH is if he was getting Social Security or disability payments (which have to go through a court and require a doctor to certify the disability). This makes fraud rather unlikely, and legally risky to the fraudster.

Another way to spot a truth stretcher, or someone who is operating on incorrect information or assumptions is that they talk about checks arriving in the mail. All Federal and most state benefit programs pay in one of two ways, via direct deposits made to debit cards (which is most common) or direct deposits made to bank accounts. For instance, the poster I'm replying to mentions in another post that he knows the color of SSI checks, which is unusual, since the only way to get SSI payments is electronically.

For what it's worth, in Ohio where the poster I'm replying to says he's from, the time limit for welfare is 3 years,Unemployment insurance is 26 weeks, and the only method of payment for all welfare payments is the Ohio Pathway card, which is a direct deposit debit card. Source

As for people having XBoxes, etc- I get that. From when I was about 5 till I was about 12, my mom was one of the 97% of honest people who collected welfare (no limits on time back then). She worked, and from time to time, saved enough cash to do something nice for us. I had an Atari, and we almost never went out in Goodwill clothes.

Despite minimum wage income, we were below the line for a family of three, so we got healthcare, checks, and were eligible for food stamps, but we never used the stamps unless times were extremely tough, because mom said she could just feel the judging coming off people who have never had literally no idea how they were going to provide for their families. One time when we were using the stamps, I successfully begged her into getting peanut butter captain crunch because it had a awesome toy, and when we were checking out, a cashier asked her if she really needed name brand cereal. I'm pushing 40 and I still feel guilty about that- my mom crying in the car because I had to have a fancy box of cereal.

So in closing, as a former poor person who gladly pays his taxes and is happy to have a tiny portion of it go to those less fortunate than me, the vast majority of whom are completely honest, I'd like to apologize on behalf of poor people everywhere who have the bad taste and audacity to make life as nice as possible for themselves and their children.