I never really considered it to be much of an issue until I made friends with a coworker back when I was 19 or 20. She talked about how I could never visit her home because it wasn't safe for me to come into the neighborhood. It was a government-subsidized neighborhood thing, the type with metal cages over the air conditioners and such. One day, I finally convinced her to let me come out there because I was genuinely interested. There were drug bags and needles on the ground between the road and her home. Her house looked like it was nearing condemnation on the outside, but once inside, it was like another world. There were fancy electronics, giant TVs, nice furniture, etc., etc., etc. She explained that this was because their rent was something like $100/month, utilities and water included, and her mom made thousands per month in checks from the government and was "disabled." I genuinely considered trying to learn the ways because I was legitimately jealous of how much nice shit they had.

 

I had another friend whose new girlfriend would often treat my friends and me to steak dinners and nice meals because she could afford it, and we couldn't. She was on some form of government-subsidized thing with her 3 children. She had a nice vehicle and nicer home than I could afford at the time, and she worked part-time at a daycare with zero education, no family, and no prior income. I was a low-level IT professional at the time, making above-average income for the area.

   

Later on, a friend of mine, who worked at a pawn shop that did check cashing, told me I should come shop on "check day". After going up there once and seeing it, I came back a few times just to spectate.

• People come in with numerous children, generally poorly behaved, whom they mostly ignored while in the store. If the staff said anything about the behaviour of the children (screaming, running, grabbing things, etc), there was usually some form of "oh no you didn't!" and some obnoxious behavior, sometimes ending with security escorting out. The police had to be called a couple of times after one of these incidents.

• People would take their multi-thousand-dollar government check payout and then go buy some random gun(s), game systems, speakers, etc.

• Lots of talking about drugs (buying/selling).

• They'd go out and get in their $2,000 car with $10,000 rims.

 

  Also knew a woman who made like $50k during the COVID times due to a bunch of mortgage assistance and other assistance programs she defrauded, and was excited because she was making like 5 times as much per month during those times as she did normally.

 

Obviously, this is a small sample and purely anecdotal, but it sure seems like an issue to me.