Quoted:
Say your a single female and have 4 kids, make $8 an hour at your part/full time job. What can you net from the system?
I would estimate with all the food, housing, medical, etc, her '.gov assistance' has her bringing in and living better than a single mom with 4 kids with no assistance who makes about $80,000 a year.
Well, I work for public health for a rather large metropolitan area county and can answer your question with some measure of certainty (kinda)!! I don't actually work with the welfare system in my county, but many of the co-workers I work with do. The answer will vary by state, and even by county and city, so I can only give you numbers for my state and county. But, a year ago I was doing some training and on our break struck up a conversation with a woman who works for our welfare services. I asked her how much in aid could a single mom with two kids get. She said there were a lot of variables, but assuming all the variables equaled maximum disbursements, it would amount to roughly $30-$35k for up to 5 years (because some welfare services are limited to 5 years - typically your direct cash disbursements (though she did tell me there are ways around those limitations that allow people to receive term benefits for longer durations)). Now, the caveat is that if you are a single woman with kids, IF you worked (earning $8/hr as in your example) in many states/counties/cities that income could work/be counted against you receiving benefits (e.g. your earnings reduce how much direct cash you can receive from the welfare system by X%). So it would be better for you not to work at all as a single mother on welfare in most cases. Also, many will have the boyfriend/husband also on welfare but claiming a separate residence, or he will work and earn an income but still claim a separate residence so his income isn't counted against the woman's benefit calculations. My co-worker told me that gaming the system is rampant and those who game the system are norm is some manner, not the exception to the rule.
There are people in my county that have been on the food stamp program for 35 continuous years.