I think what may have been driving the welfare reform is the pressure from society due to the myths (they don't want to work, they continue to have babies so they can stay on it, etc..). I still believe the reform was necessary although I believe the welfare to the nonpoor should also have been included in that. I realize that it isn't changing the poverty level by making them go to work, however by making them work, I believe it raises self esteem and self confidence as well as gives them the opportunity to advance that they don't have staying on welfare and thereby eventually raising themselves above the poverty level (we hope). Why not subsidize the working poor to help them get above that poverty level until they can on their own? Help those that are helping themselves so to speak.

I was under the assumption that the welfare system was put in place to help those in need. Do I still believe that? NO!! My husband and I have worked our entire lives and yet when we both had to stop working to go to Seattle for his transplant, guess what we were told? You are going to be living in WA so we can't give it to you in OR. WA told us, you are residents of OR so we can't give it to you. After struggling through those 5 months and returning home we were informed we had too many "possessions" to qualify. My response was that we worked all these years, are we supposed to have nothing? Do we have to sell off everything we have worked so hard for to get help for awhile? The answer I received to that one of course was, getting rid of your stuff to make you eligible in itself makes you ineligible. So, all the years that we worked hard and did what we were supposed to do got us where? No help when we needed it, that's where, so I guess I am a bit biased when it comes to the welfare system for having paid into it all these years and getting slapped in the face when asking for help (which was difficult in itself for us to do), but we were under the assumption that it was there to help, boy were we wrong!