Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Government Benefit Programs


Everyone makes different choices and with those choices comes consequences. Based on people’s choices some of those consequences resulted in the needing of government benefit programs. With my own family experience in benefiting from government programs I have noticed that even though these programs are needed they are taken advantage of by the people. Just to disclose I cannot speak on all types of government benefit programs but I can speak on food stamps which is what I will be focusing on. Government benefit programs are a necessity and an important resource for the people but there should be some limits.

Government benefit programs are widely needed throughout the United States they always have been and always will be. There are social classes for a reason because not everyone has the same financial standings for reasons only they know. Government benefit programs are important because they provide assistance to those who cannot provide for themselves or their families for whatever reason.
Many families have benefited from government assistance including my own family. My mother worked two jobs and our family would not have gotten by without government aid. Even though my family needed government assistance we did not take it lightly and overtime we were able to support ourselves without government aid. When my family received government aid honestly it was embarrassing and I was so happy when we didn’t need it anymore. 
 
With my family not needing assistance anymore I started noticing how other people used their government aid and how they used it for the right reasons but still took advantage of the system. People who have used food stamps know that only certain food can be purchased but brands are not limited. One observations I have made is that people on food stance since they are not paying for their food themselves think that they have to have all made brand food and then they complain when they have no more aid for that month. Another observation I have made is I have witnessed some people try and buy dog food with food stands, which you cannot do but the people try and when they are denied they switch the dog food for hamburger meat for their dog. These two observations are loopholes in the system that should be changed.
With all of that being said I do have a couple of recommendations on how the government benefit programs can be improved. My first recommendation would be to create some type of checklist for food stamps kind of like how WIC is done. My second recommendation would be to inform people that name brand is not always better. My recommendations are simple just limit and inform. 

In conclusion, government benefit programs are needed but there are so many loopholes that can be avoided and actually save the government money. With government aid people are not motivated to improve their lifestyle because they know the government will take care of them. There are some cases where families would not survive without these programs and there are other who honestly are just running a scam.