Morphing into a welfare nation

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According to certain reports, the US has spent $3.7-trillion (over R40-tr) on welfare in the past five years.

It seems the cumulative spending on welfare during the Obama years has been five times greater than what’s been spent on transportation, education and NASA combined.

Obama has become known as the food stamp President, with more than 47-million recipients in America living according to this as one of 15 food-aid programmes.

And there are fears that welfare spending will increase by 80 per cent over the next decade.

That’s equated to about over R120-tr in welfare spending over that time.

By creating a welfare nation, it therefore becomes more lucrative – in the form of actual disposable income – to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work.

Isn’t this the danger that faces South Africa as well?

In his recent State of the Nation address, Zuma said that spending on social assistance has risen from R75-billion in 2008/09 to R118-bn this year.

The number of grant recipients has increased from 13-m in 2009 to 15.8-m in 2014.

Let us stop the bus right here. In a country of somewhat 60-m people, where about a third is under the age of 19, almost 16m-people, which is about 40 per cent of the nation older than 20 years, is receiving some form of grant.

Recently, Pravin Gordan, the minister of Finance, announced in the Budget Speech that the number of people eligible for grants is due to reach 16.5-m by 2016/17.

All grant recipients, be it old age and disability, foster care or child support grant received increases for the new financial year.

Gordon stressed that unemployment insurance and our expanding social grants programme provided increased income support to the most vulnerable.

While it is indeed noteworthy that the government wants to aid its citizen, does the danger not exist of creating this idea that it is ok, like in America, not to be too stressed about not working?

There must be surely danger signals that the government is willing to support 16-m people, placing greater strain on the taxpayer.

Are we being so cruel as to propose the idea that maybe some households are piling on the number of children just to get grants?

Or about how about the idea of becoming a foster parent just for the extra income?

South Africa sits with an unemployment rate of about 26 per cent, and if you consider how many people are already making use of some form of grant, then this paints a morbid picture of South Africa.

The problem is, instead of the government doing more to create work and to improve the economic climate, it is handing out grants to still the pain like a doctor prescribing pain sedatives instead of curing the sickness.

How long will it be that we also return to food programmes such as couponing?

The idea of walking around with little coupons to score a cent here or there just doesn’t appeal to me – and then, many times, as with certain discount or loyalty cards, it applies to a shop which you will never visit.

Loyalty programmes is after all more proof of how all kinds of tricks are being tried to make people feel easier about the state of the economy or the depth of their pockets.

Beyond grants, a lot of people are also relying on the National Lottery (a rather sophisticated but still a form of a potential social grant) or even the luck at the casino to improve their standard of living.

America is spending trillions to help out its people, but they have far more money that lowly SA. Yet, we spent almost R120-bn, which is a lot of dough.

We already see a culture developing where we would not work but hope for a grant. We see this culture on the street corners, where for some it is has become easier to beg and, thus, to receive a “social grant” from the public on a daily basis.

We need to be very cautious that we don’t end up like America. It is a slippery slope where social grants become a safety net.

Problem is, the government is constantly enlarging this safety net, as what is happening in America, because unemployment continues to spike while the economy lags.

At the end of the day, the government cannot or dare not take away the net.

All that is going to happen is that more people will rely on social grants to make it through the day, and those few who still have and want to work will foot the expanding bill to help out the citizens.

Now, what did I do with my milk discount coupon?