Less Work, More Welfare: How Immoral Policies Are Making Americans Poorer
A new report shows that over the last four decades, poor Americans have become far more likely to receive their daily bread from welfare than work. This slide from self-reliance to government dependence serves as an economic barometer of American decline, fueled by perverse incentives created by morally challenged government policies.
The numbers paint a stark picture of American indolence. In 1979, Americans living in poverty earned 60% of their income from work. In 2021, the share had fallen to 25%. That analysis from the Congressional Budget Office shows the startling degree to which, in 42 years, Americans have moved steadily from a paycheck to a handout.
“Low-income Americans are receiving an ever-growing share of their financial resources from government transfers, not work,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who requested the report, in a statement emailed to me. “To improve our nation’s welfare system, we must pursue policies that will lift more Americans out of poverty — including strengthening incentives to seek a job like tying benefits to commonsense work requirements. This will help more of our fellow Americans achieve independence and gainful employment. After all, a job is the best anti-poverty program that exists.”
Smith is to be commended for requesting this report and focusing on a policy solution. The report reveals that some of the great drivers of joblessness are political, some personal. But, as secular government analyses always do, this study ignores the moral components underlying increased welfare dependence.
The fact that more Americans have come to rely on welfare serves as an indictment of a nation that has forgotten the Apostle Paul’s admonition, “If any would not work, neither should he eat” (II Thessalonians 3:10). God gave Adam work to do in the Garden of Eden before the fall and, in the post-exilic world, He intended work to supply our daily needs (Genesis 2:15; Proverbs 6:6-11 and 12:11). Honest work, combined with frugal living, allows Christians to care for the needs of others (II Corinthians 8:13-15; I Timothy 5:3-16).
While some percentage of Americans lack the physical or mental ability to earn a living, the ever-growing number of Americans on welfare rolls far outstrips that of its incapacitated recipients. That proves Americans have lost sight of biblical importance of work: Work benefits our souls, improves the raw materials bestowed in God’s creation, enhances our God-given talents, allows us to provide for our own needs while serving others, and allows us to provide for those truly unable to participate in this ennobling cycle.
The Apostle Paul showed the excellence of work by working as a tentmaker in order to carry out his missionary work. St. Jerome — who translated the Bible into Latin, the language of the West — once asked a monk the same question idle Christians should ask themselves: “If apostles who had the right to live of the Gospel labored with their own hands that they might be chargeable to no man, and bestowed relief upon others whose carnal things they had a claim to reap as having sown unto them spiritual things; why do you not provide a supply to meet your needs?”
When followed, the biblical plan still works. Only 2.5% of Americans who work full-time fell below the poverty level, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another study found only 1.7% of Canadians who worked full-time lived in poverty. In other words, work eliminates nearly 100% of all poverty.
Perhaps more importantly, this report serves as an indictment of family breakdown. “Of the four types of households examined, unmarried households with children had the highest percentage of people with money income below the poverty threshold,” found the report. That reinforces government statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, which reported, “Of people in families, those in married-couple families had the lowest poverty rate (5.2 percent), while those in female-householder families had the highest (23.6 percent).” Both homes led by single mothers and households with cohabiting partners had four times the poverty level of married couples.
On the other hand, traditional married families earned the most money, with a median income of $119,400 in 2023, compared to $59,470 in homes led by single mothers. Even in families where only one person works, single mothers were more than three times as likely to end up in poverty than married couples. In fact, single mothers earn just over $5,000 a year more than single men without children (and thus, without incentives to earn more).
Can it be a coincidence that the number of married households in America has fallen from 71% in 1971 to 47% in 2022? When mothers and fathers cannot take their place in God’s order, and children lack the example of a working father, society sets young people up for a life of government dependence and wasted potential. And our reduced GDP is the least consequential result.
America’s retreat from work serves as an indictment of our welfare system. After the Left’s purposeful throttling of President Donald Trump’s red-hot economy in the name of COVID-19, Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending spree gave workers collecting unemployment a $300 weekly bonus. That surplus gave approximately one in four workers more money than they could earn by working. One study showed that policy alone depressed employment by approximately 14%.
The report also shows the problems presented by counterproductive economic interventionist policies that destroy jobs and opportunity. Politicians promote tax-hikes that raise prices, massive spending that fuels inflation, and subsidies for unpopular products such as electric vehicles — all of which distort the market — for short-term political gain. For example, a minimum wage when raised too high prices out the poorest and neediest from the job market. The CBO estimated a proposed minimum wage hike would give workers an average of $50 a week — and throw 1.3 million people out of the workforce, reducing GDP by $9 billion.
The report also points an accusing finger at our nation’s immigration system. The recent H1-B visa debate provided a healthy spasm against a corporatist immigration system starving American families of good opportunities. During the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration, all net job growth has gone to immigrants. Between 2019 and late 2023, 2.9 million immigrants took U.S. jobs, while 183,000 American citizens left the job force. Mass immigration — illegal and legal — reduces wages, making a welfare check seem far more inviting than 40 hours of toil.
Finally, the report presses charges against American Christians. Why are churches not providing charity on a grander scale for those in need? Why have private citizens outsourced essential functions — like fulfilling Christ’s commandment to feed the hungry and clothe the naked — to the secular state? Government benefits lead to an attitude of entitlement and enable self-destructive pathologies. Secular programs cannot cure the problems secularism created.
Churches alone stand in the position to address the underlying issues that keep sidelined Americans out of the workforce — addiction, depression, lack of motivation, family commitments, lack of child care, etc. — and to elevate even seemingly mundane work to its true spiritual significance.
AUTHOR
Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
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