Being raised on Welfare also increases the probability that a child will drop out of school and will be on Welfare as an adult. Analysis shows that these effects are caused by Welfare per se, not simply poverty; a poor child without Welfare will do better than a similar poor child with welfare.

Welfare program supports are often inconsistent in their application. This disadvantage means that a family might qualify for welfare benefits in one state, but not in another one. It is an issue that can restrict access to welfare because some households might think they don’t qualify for benefits.

A social welfare system offers assistance to individuals and families in need, with such programs as health care assistance, food stamps, and unemployment compensation. Lesser known parts of a social welfare system include disaster relief and educational assistance.

Non-Technical Summary: Growing up in welfare dependency limits the opportunities of children to participate as full members of society, is economically inefficiently by wasting human resources, reduces people’s trust in social and political institutions, and undermines social cohesion.

Medicaid paid for the health care of 75.1 million low-income adults in 2017. The largest share, of this cost (40 percent) went to 30.0 million children. In 2014, Medicaid also paid health expenses for 9.8 million blind and disabled people.

The exclusively federal share of spending on these federal programs is up 32 percent since 2008, and now comprises 21 percent of federal outlays (this share too is more than Social Security, Medicare, or defense).

In other words, the federal government dedicates resources of nearly 8 percent of the economy toward health care. By 2028, we estimate these costs will rise to $2.9 trillion, or 9.7 percent of the economy. Over time, these costs will continue to grow and consume an increasing share of federal resources.

Most of the funding for K–12 education comes from the state. In 2018–19, California public schools received a total of $97.2 billion in funding from three sources: the state (58%), property taxes and other local sources (32%), and the federal government (9%).

Like most governments, California relies primarily on taxes to fund the public services that it provides to its individuals and businesses. California’s state and local governments raise well over $200 billion annually in own-source revenues to provide public services, with roughly 60 percent of this from taxes.

So with costs rising at both public and private institutions of higher learning, student loan debt is one of the most prominent issues in education today. Students who graduated from college in 2019 came out with an average debt load of $29,800. As a whole, Americans owe over $1.6 trillion in student loans.

9 challenges students face in school are poverty, homeless families, child abuse and neglect, bullying (including cyber bullying), violence, obesity and eating disorders, sex and pregnancy, suicide, drugs, and dropping out.