Charles Murray

In the following viewpoint, Charles Murray asserts that in order to encourage welfare mothers to change their behavior and join the workforce, government must ensure that remaining on public assistance offers a lower standard of living than low-wage work does. Although politicians talked tough about ending the entitlement to welfare during the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill, the pressure on recipients to get jobs has eased, and people are finding loopholes in the complex welfare laws. For the increasingly unmotivated and unreceptive clients still on the rolls, welfare remains a comfortable alternative to employment. According to Murray, if government does not back up its tough message with more punitive reforms, dependency will continue and the welfare rolls will increase again. Murray is the Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

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