End of Welfare: No Job and No Child Support

“End of Welfare Leaves Rural Poor in a Bind” (April 6), highlighting the difficulties poor rural women face as their welfare benefits run out, leaves me wondering why the fathers of these kids are not held accountable for the support of their children. What kind of a society allows men to sire children and then run away from this most important obligation?

I run a business that has employed men who quickly quit their jobs once the child-support decrees hit their paychecks. Somehow they feel that not paying the decree is “punishment” aimed at their ex-partners rather than realizing it’s aimed right at their kids.

If legislation could be passed to hold men more accountable for the kids they help bring into this world, there would be not only a reduction in welfare costs but, more important than the dollars saved, an improvement in the quality of life for these kids.

Katherine Johansen

Orange

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The basic assumptions underlying the welfare system are at best draconian and at worst lethal. Here are a few:

People who don’t have jobs are lazy and don’t want to work; everyone is capable of getting and keeping a job; regional economies have little impact on joblessness; and reduction in the welfare rolls means that reforms have been successful.

These assumptions are not only false, they’re outrageous. The United States has the dubious honor of having the highest child poverty rate of any industrialized country in the world; 33 million people are hungry or at the edge of hunger, including 13 million children. It is clearly documented that people who can work, with very few exceptions, want nothing more than a job. People who can’t work because of disabilities or lack of opportunity can’t be tossed on a garbage heap.

If the greatness of a country is measured by how it treats its neediest people, we must do some serious reexamination of our priorities. The next war should be one on hunger and poverty in the United States.

Barbara H. Bergen

Associate Director

MAZON: A Jewish

Response to Hunger, L.A.