Who Is on Welfare?

Who Is on Welfare?

Luke 1:46-55

            All too often we hear someone say, “People are poor because they’re lazy.  If they’d get off their seats and get a job they wouldn’t be poor.  They’re happy to sit at home and collect welfare.  Our tax money keeps them going, so why should they work?

            Putting aside all we know about systemic poverty, poverty that exists and even deepens from generation to generation; putting aside the actions of some governmental and business leaders in this country which keep the poor in that condition; putting aside the fact that welfare is not a path to riches; how true is the statement that people are happy to take welfare so they won’t have to work?

            Partly true.  We lived in Eastern Kentucky when the Clinton administration enacted significant welfare reforms.  Many families there had received welfare for generations.  They couldn’t believe their monthly payments would ever stop.  This is the way things had always been, and the way things would always be.  In fact, contrary to common belief, that area had one of the highest rates of welfare dependency in the country.

            On the other hand, I believe Norman Mailer’s words are instructive.

            “To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every member of society by how productive he or she is.  Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there’s more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.”

            Corporate welfare.  We’ve heard the phrase before.  Tax breaks and accommodations given to wealthy corporations on the theory that such accommodations will produce jobs—jobs that the poor will be able to fill so they can work their way out of poverty.  If it were that simple, the ranks of the poor would have been diminished long ago.

            Tax breaks for the wealthy.  Deductions that ordinary workers can’t take advantage of because the threshold of financial eligibility is so high that only about one percent of the entire population of the country can qualify.  After a recent cut in federal taxes, a high-ranking federal official said to a room full of his wealthy friends and acquaintances, “I’ve just made you much richer.”  Corporate welfare and tax deductions for the very rich, instead of adding money to the economy remove it from circulation as the rich hoard their wealth. 

            Who will speak for the poor?  Who will speak for those whose voices cannot be heard by those in power because the wealthy make too much noise?

            Throughout the Bible God speaks for the poor, the disenfranchised, those whose needs society would rather ignore.  Exodus is the story of God hearing the voice of slavery in Egypt and acting to bring God’s people to a land flowing with milk and honey. 

Hannah, being granted a son by God, sings (1 Samuel 2:7-8), “The Lord makes poor and makes rich, he brings low and he exalts.  He raises up the poor from the dust, he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.”

Jesus, speaking words God sent him to proclaim, frequently expressed God’s preference for the poor and forgotten.

But who will speak for the poor today?  Will no one defend their rights?

Haile Selassie, former emperor of Ethiopia, said: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

With God’s preference that poverty be ended, we’d best make sure we speak for them when we have the chance.  We don’t want to be on the wrong side of the welfare issue.