Back when the Clinton-era welfare reform package, dubbed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996," was being debated in Congress, I remember a representative from the Chicago area proclaiming that the bill's work requirements were unfair to many of her constituents, some of whom came from families who had been lying in the welfare hammock for two or three generations and shouldn't be expected to work.
Around that same time, I was working in a small business in Aurora, Colorado, and a young woman, a single mother, came in to take a job in the shipping department, stating that she had to get a job because of those requirements. She followed the example of her supervisor, worked hard, became very diligent, and ended up making a very comfortable living. In her case, welfare did what it should; it gave her a hand up, not a handout.
But now, in Colorado, the taxpayers are on the hook for thousands of dollars every month to keep welfare cases in some pretty expensive apartments - some of them, again, for several generations. We're talking able-bodied, able-minded people, again, reclining in the welfare hammock.
Taxpayers are covering rents of up to $3,879 per month in Colorado, leading taxpayer advocates to question the growing duration of federal Section 8 housing choice voucher (HCV) usage.
"Section 8 needs to focus on lifting people out of the trap of poverty, not putting them into the lap of luxury," said National Taxpayers Union president Pete Sepp in an interview with The Center Square. "It's unfair to ask taxpayers who can't afford mortgages or rents of nearly $4,000 per month to foot the bill for subsidies amounting to that much."
HCV recipients remain in the program for an average of 15.1 years – that’s up from an average of 12.4 years in 2000, according to a 2024 federal report.
The largest monthly payment I have ever had for a mortgage was a tad over $2,000, and that was for the huge, 4,800 square foot, rambling barn of a house we raised our family in. It's hard to credit almost twice that for an apartment.
But wait! There's more!
When asked about a 2026 budget proposal from the Trump administration that would limit Section 8 assistance to two years, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner recounted his meeting with a recipient whose family had been housed by the program for multiple generations.
“She’s 52 years old, she’s been living there since 1973. She’s able-bodied, able-minded. She was raised there. She lived there. Now she’s raising her children there,” Turner said in a video his office posted to X on August 25, recounting a meeting with a multi-generational federal housing recipient. “That’s three generations living on government subsidies that are able bodied, able minded.”
"She" - odd, maybe, but there's no mention of a husband, or a father to her children. And note that Secretary Turner says "children." Plural. I'm sorry if I seem insensitive, but - oh, all right, I'm not sorry if I seem insensitive, but this person is what my British friend would call a "dole scrounger." An able-minded, able-bodied person languishing on welfare, because they are allowed to do so, and in what is apparently a lovely apartment out of the reach of many a young married couple with two incomes.
Read More: New: HUD Sec. Orders Public Housing Authority to Root Out Illegal Alien Residents
Worse still are the incentives:
Should a household start to make more money than the area’s maximum Section 8 income limit — which for a five-member household in Colorado Springs is $60,750 per year — the family would be forced off the program. At $60,750 per year, a household that does not want to be rent-burdened — and thus spend no more 30% of its income on rent — could only afford rent of $1518.75 per month. That is significantly less than the up to $3,879 of taxpayer-funded value provided by Section 8.
As a result, earning more money could cost Section 8 recipients their housing. To not be rent-burdened while paying $3,250 per month on rent, a household would need to make $130,000 per year, or more than double the income threshold at which a family would be removed from Section 8.
So, the incentives are clear: Stay on the dole, stay in that nice, taxpayer-funded apartment.
Looking for an example of wasteful spending in government? Here you have it. Public-funded housing should be spare indeed. The taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for a big luxury apartment. The best that should be on offer is a one-bedroom walk-up with a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. I'm sure that for what the taxpayers are now getting soaked for, a decent contractor could run up a few high-rises on this model, and then the message becomes this: Like it or lump it, and oh, by the way, there's a five-year lifetime time limit on residency, so smarten yourself up and get a job.
Any system where multi-generation welfare families are living in far nicer housing than young working people can afford is a system that has to be brought to heel.
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