Welfare

7 Pages 1729 Words

of entry-level jobs, poverty-ridden neighborhoods where education and work experience is limited, and poor mass transportation to the suburbs, where jobs seem to be more abundant. Central cities increasingly have become home to those who rely on welfare, subsidized health care and other social services. Although poverty has declined in central cities, urban poverty rates are still twice as high as suburban rates.
In the nation’s largest cities, the proportion of all residents who are poor is close to 20 percent, compared with only 8 percent in suburbs taken as a whole. Because the poverty population is disproportionately concentrated in big cities, the cities are obligated to spend more of their own fiscal resources per resident to combat poverty as compared to smaller cities, especially most suburbs with a lower percentage of poor residents.
The cost of the concentration of poverty in the big cities drives many non-poor residents and viable businesses to migrate to the suburbs. The withdrawal of households and firms from big cities impairs the cities’ ability to provide adequate services to their residents, both poor and non-poor. For these reasons, many urban citizens rely on the welfare system.

It is important to first address the many myths that t...