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In Tennessee, a parent with one dependent child could receive a $95/month in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), also known as welfare payments. Two children brings her benefit up to $142/month. Three children nets the parent $185. Four children gets her $226. Five children raises the benefit to $264/month. Six children gets her the princely sum of $305/month.https://greenbook-waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/greenbook.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/2012/documents/Table%207-23%20RM%20TANF.pdfI was a child support enforcement attorney for eight years. My job included getting child support for parents who were collecting welfare assistance in order to get them off the government dole.My district included around 3,000 welfare cases, so I met a lot of welfare mamas.And not one of them thought $305/month was enough money to have six children. Now, some had six children or more. But getting a $40/month raise per kid, up to a cap of six, wasn’t one of the reasons why.The number one answer I got for a mother having a large number children was birth control failure.And nonpayment of child support by the absent parent was the reason they qualified for assistance.Because any child support would be more than the mother would receive in TANF payments and this would kick her out of eligibility.TANF assistance pays for rent, utilities, transportation, and non-food items like clothing and soap.To be eligible for these payments, there is a welfare to work component where the mother has to receive training for a job because you can only receive benefits for 60 months.Believe me, nobody is making bank on welfare payments.So, I think the women who have multiple children while receiving welfare benefits have a hard row to hoe. And the ones who “graduate” from the program, by getting a stable job that pays enough to support their family, are to be admired.And I think people who believe we could balance the federal budget if only poor people would stop having babies are uninformed.Because if they truly understood the problems, they might feel sympathy for these single mothers.They might even get legislators to vote for more government assistance for programs like day care, to lift these women out of poverty rather than funding ineffective programs like drug testing welfare recipients.TANF is temporary.It is financial assistance program with an attached to a work component to help families break the cycle of poverty.And I’ve seen it work.Many of my clients received training in healthcare, and were able to “graduate” from welfare recipient to bread winner with a well paying, stable job.My star client had eight children, two over the welfare cap, when she got her caregiver certification. She was in such demand, she was able to start her own business. She sold it to a large company and was retained in the company with a six figure annual salary.TANF payments are not a never ending pot of gold enticing women to pop out babies for big payouts.TANF payments are a means to an end. They help the mother during a financially insecure time so she can get the work training she needs to be self sufficient.Most women receiving TANF don’t have large families, because it’s too hard to live on such a pittance.And I don't judge the ones who do.

If I were to think of a subsidy program that could be abused, it would be disability, not welfare. In fact, by cost and growth, disability is the new face of American welfare. The federal government now spends $16 billion per year on TANF, compared to a whopping $128 billion for SSDI and $50 billion for SSI, the two main disability programs. And this disparity is growing.Look at these charts:Total cost of Social Security Disability Insurance (1970-2002):Total cost of Supplementary Security Income (1974 - 2002)Federal Welfare spending since welfare reform:If you're really wondering where our money is going, it isn't welfare. Our annual federal welfare spending costs as much as two weeks in Iraq.In fact, if you're imagining welfare queens getting big government checks to pay for their Cadillacs, you're probably thinking of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. AFDC ended in 1996.Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform replaced AFDC with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). TANF is much harder to abuse than AFDC, because of these requirements:Recipients must find work within two yearsA lifetime limit of 5 years of benefitsStrict limitations on eligibility for legal immigrants; no eligibility for illegal onesThe benefits are also quite small. The maximum for CalWORKs, California's TANF program is $387 / month for one recipient, $788 / month for a family of three. This is the maximum benefit, and many families qualify for less. The average rent in East Palo Alto, the poor neighbor of Palo Alto whose poverty rate is 18%, is $3,000 / month. CalWORKs provides nowhere near enough money to afford living comfortably in this relatively poor town, much less in a nicer one.Not only is it harder to qualify under our new system, even if you do game the system, you don't get much money, and that money gets cut off after 5 years. This is apparent from our declining enrollment in welfare since 1996.The more relevant program for life on the government dole is disability, which has no lifetime limit. Disability is split into two programs.The first is Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). This is for people with a verified working history who become disabled and unable to work. If you qualify, your benefit is up to 80% of your average past income, with a 2015 maximum monthly benefit of $2,663.The second program is Supplemental Security Income (SSI).To qualify, you must:Suffer a disability or be over age 65 andHave less than $733 / month in income and $2,000 in assets (some income and assets can be excluded)The maximum individual monthly benefit is $733.There is potential for abuse in both programs, but currently no way to know whether the abuse is significant or not. We know that the programs are growing quickly, and we also have statistics on disability recipients.The first thing we know about recipients is that Appalachia and the Deep South are disproportionately represented on the disability rolls, with the overall trend being that disability is a strongly rural phenomenon:The top 5 states for percent of residents on disability are West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi. West Virginia's rate is 9.5%, more than triple California's 3.1%.We also know that disability recipients skew much older, with 63% over age 40. Disability recipients are disproportionately likely to be native-born, with relatively few immigrants enrolled in the programs.Finally, the race profile of disability is different from that of welfare:Whites: 72% of population, 53% of disability recipients, and 32% of TANF recipientsAfrican Americans: 13% of population, 29% of disability recipients, and 32% of TANF recipientsHispanics: 17% of population, 8% of disability recipients, and 30% of TANF recipientsWe see that Hispanics are greatly underrepresented in disability, while whites have a much higher representation for disability than they do for TANF. African Americans are overrepresented in both groups compared to their share of the population.The demographics of disability, especially its geographical distribution, are crucial to understanding its causes. We see it concentrated in towns with high poverty, low education, and few employment opportunities. We also see that it is highest in mining and timbering towns, both of which are hazardous to residents' health.So instead of the image many have of government being bankrupted by welfare spending on urban minorities, we see both that disability absolutely dwarfs welfare, and the face of disability is older, whiter, and more rural than that of TANF. But many of the same aggravating factors are present: both are found where unemployment and poverty are high.Finally, while disability is expensive, we spend a lot less on it than other countries:Percentage of GDP spent on disability (2003):Putting all of this together, I think you'll see that it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to live one's life sitting around collecting government welfare checks.If you're still worried about waste or fraud, or you just don't like the safety net, look at disability and rural Americans instead of TANF and urban ones. That's where most of our costs are.Edit: Read the comments!There were a whole bunch of great comments that really expand on this answer.[1] Shava Nerad and User-13439724473976683010 moved past the cold numbers and shared great insights into the individual stories of some people on disability.[2] Penni Takade shared a link to a This American Life episode about disability. It's an hour long, but worth it. (biggest surprise for me: the large and growing number of children on disability). Here is her link:Trends With Benefits | This American LifeAlso the episode had an accompanying webpage full of infographics:Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America[3] Mary Farris shared an article and some of its highlights. Here is her link:Social Security disability fraud is rare[4] User-12723320656663887955 shared an investigative piece by Slate on disability. It has some interesting statistics on the growth of the program, although I don't think they accounted for demographic shifts (not just population growth, but also aging of the baby boomer generation and an increase of women in the work force). These shifts are mentioned in [3] above, so [3]+[4] complement each other well.Social Security's disability insurance is expensive, destructive, and out of control.If you like any of these links, please scroll down and upvote their comments!And if you have yet another perspective that you can share, please do so! We all benefit from seeing new sides to this complex issue. :-)My original references:[1] Aid to Families with Dependent Children[2] Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act[3] Page on census.gov (East Palo Alto quick facts)[4] Page on ccrwf.org (2010 CalWORKs statistics)[5] DB101 California - Glossary (2015 CalWORKs benefits table)[6] Page on foodforpeople.org (2015 CalFresh info)[7] How Much in Social Security Disability Benefits Can You Get? | Disability Secrets[8] SSI Federal Payment Amounts for 2015[9] The Geography of Disability[10] Trends in the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income Disability Programs[11] Page on cbo.gov (CBO analysis of SSDI and SSI)[12] Welfare spending cut in half since reform[12] Page on fas.org (cost of TANF)[13] Page on ssa.gov (disability recipients by race)[14] Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients, Fiscal Year 2010[15] Social Security Disability Demographics in Rural America

When I was on food stamps, I…-Got up at 6 am, ate and got ready for the day.-Woke up, diapered, dressed, wheeled to the living room and transferred to the chair, and fed my Alzheimer’s ridden Mother-in-law.-Left for work.-Worked from 9 am to 6 pm.-Checked in on my husband at lunch; he couldn’t work because someone needed to care for my MIL during the day.-Left work.-Fed MIL, took her to bathroom, changed/diapered her, got her to bed.-Ate dinner.-Spent two to four hours on my own business to help bring in more money.-Household chores.-Tried to support three people on a single income (in one of the most expensive locations in the country) because we literally could not afford to move though fortunately, our extended family was at least close by in case of emergency.-Hope to hell nothing bad happened, because we couldn’t pay for it.Caring for my MIL ate through her life savings, my husband’s life savings, and $25k of my own savings. I was working a full time job as a teacher. My take home income was $2200/mo ($35k/year gross) in an area that considers $133k annually to be the livable wage.What do people on welfare do all day?Try to get the f*** out of being in a position where they need welfare.Edit: Holy cow- 4.7k upvotes?? I’m glad (and sorry) that my answer was so relatable for so many.Second Edit: People seem to be unclear on what the definition of ‘welfare’ is- there is no single ‘welfare’ program. It is an umbrella term which covers a huge number of programs, with availability depending on your location. TANF (temporary assistance for needy families), SNAP (food stamps), LIHEAP, etc. are all welfare programs.