Executive Order on welfare an opportunity to restore hope to welfare recipients

News | For Immediate Release

April 10, 2018

Executive Order on welfare an opportunity to restore hope to welfare recipients, says Georgia Center for Opportunity CEO

ATLANTA – On Tuesday, President Trump issued a sweeping Executive Order urging the restructuring of America’s welfare system. It is an action that has been studied and mulled over for months by the White House.

Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) President and CEO Randy Hicks called the President’s action a “positive first step toward addressing a vast, unconnected, and dehumanizing system.”

“No matter how well intended many of these programs may be, they’ve often deprived people of the kinds of opportunities and life purpose we all desire,” said Hicks. “As federal officials begin the weighty task of considering reforms that will affect so many lives, we urge leaders to take bold steps that will allow its recipients to move out of poverty and onward to a life a self-sufficiency.”

In Georgia alone, almost 2 million people- twenty percent of the state’s population- is receiving at least one or more benefits. Additionally, total welfare spending in the Peach State stands at $23 billion annually.

Having produced many studies on the destructive effects of the welfare system on its recipients, the Georgia Center for Opportunity is committed to seeing the unintended consequences of the current system undone. Policy solutions that aim to restore dignity to welfare recipients and encourage employment include recommendations to consolidate overlapping welfare programs, designate a single agency to manage welfare cases, apply program integrity safeguards to weed out fraud, and end work and marriage penalties.

More information on the Georgia Center for Opportunity’s welfare reform research and reports cab be found at GeorgiaOpportunity.org/Welfare-Reform.