I have nothing against welfare, I ate as a kid because of food stamps, but he has a point. Personal ambition and goals aside, wouldn’t the goal be to support you until you’re able to fully support yourself, so that those funds can be used to help another person in need so they can get to a better place in life as well?
In my case, I have a disability, I work part-time, and my parents support me too, and Section 8 still pays some rent because I'm not able to cover it all, even after that. And my situation has reached maximum improvement.
There's a Family Self-Sufficiency program which is great. They provide resources for education and employment and stuff, and they escrow some funds which are usually awarded when you "graduate" from the program. Graduation entails raising income so far that your benefits cease and you are officially self-sufficient. They've recounted many success stories over the years. Mostly younger folks who hit a rough patch, but then got through college for a degree and then a great full-time job. I'm in the program, but I don't expect to ever graduate or see my escrowed funds. The FSS program is actually run by HUD as a funnel for first-time homebuyers. They encourage you to use the escrow as a down payment on a house.
I will certainly say that as my income has increased and benefit decreased, that has undoubtedly freed up funds to help many other people, so I do my part by keeping income as high as humanly possible.
I don't know about corruption. They do want people in the program to stay that way, of course. It's mandatory to report income, so every time I report an increase, my benefit goes down, and certainly I could be assured that if I blew the lid off that, my benefit would go away, and I'd be done with the program. I haven't encountered anyone enticing me to lie or conceal anything. YMMV, of course, because these programs are all run at the municipal level, so corruption in some places isn't going to translate to corruption all over.
