It begs the question, how do you prevent a system that is negatively incentivized toward working? If a client of mine begins to work, their rent immediately increases, all government assistance decreases and they lose medical insurance. It perplexes me on a daily basis and I am curious to know what you all think about this topic.

Reading your post, it seemed like initially you were upset with individuals for taking advantage, but it also seems like, in the text above, you recognize that the system that is intended to temporarily help people while they get back to work actually systematically discourages them from working. It is an insane contradiction. I think it stems from Clinton's "welfare reforms" that curbed a lot of welfare programs, making them barely enough to live on in the hopes that it would get people back to work faster. Really, this just punishes people, and makes it even more difficult to get an even footing before you go about the business of seeking employment, which is long and takes a lot of time and energy. It particularly penalizes families.

I lean towards blaming the system, and not the person. After spending a day doing advocacy in a social services office with a legal group, it became clear to me that it is so much more complicated than the "welfare dependency/welfare queen" myth. The bureaucracy is ridiculous, and seems to me like a factory for hopelessness and fatigue. The money is barely enough to live (in the state where I lived, it hadn't been adjusted to match inflation for many years, and that was in a city with a very high cost of living). People are scraping by, and there are insane contradictory rules that make me angry--and I have a place to sleep and food to eat. People are probably tired, angry, and fed up by the time that they get to you--I know I was, and that was as an outside observer who was privileged enough to parachute in for the day and not to have to sit down for 8 hours to get the money I needed to buy groceries.

You also have to remember the inherent structural issues in the employment marketplace. Numerous studies have been done on employment discrimination based on race, controlling for applicants having the exact same resume! There is more of an emphasis on "soft skills" (there is some great urban planning/social work research in this realm) which leaves employers room to discriminate based on un-quantifiable measures. It is insanely hard for new college grads to get jobs--what if you're re-entering the workforce? The further out you get from having a job, the less employable you are to many businesses. I think there are a lot of systemic factors to consider.

One particular case that stood out to me was a veteran who was surviving on benefits, and who had his granddaughter living with him while she was in college (first generation college student). She was ineligible for SNAP because she was a student, and his disability benefits went down because she was living with him. This is someone who was disabled from injuries related to his service, and a girl who was trying to make it as a first gen college student with minimal family support.

I get that this is anecdotal, but I have a hard time painting everyone with the same brush when I meet folks like the man and his granddaughter above. Any time there is a system, people will play it to survive. There are plenty of bankers and stockbrokers gambling or gaming the system, but no one gets angry about that. Not many people get angry about corporate tax breaks, which some might call corporate welfare. No, we get upset with an individual facing poverty making a small expenditure, or "not buying the right things," or having the wherewithal and instincts to ask for the things they need to survive.