West Virginians deserve a government benefits system that’s more than slippery chutes and broken ladders

Have you played the game Chutes and Ladders recently? It’s fun, and it was one of my favorites when my daughter was younger. Players roll dice and move spaces, trying to reach the finish line. Landing on a ladder catapults you ahead, giving you extra spaces. But chutes make you go backwards. 

The game would have been less fun and more frustrating if it were all chutes and no ladders. But that’s what our modern social service system is: slippery chutes and, at best, broken ladders. 

In my church, people accompany community members to their DHHR appointments. If you’re one of the tens of thousands of West Virginians whose life depends on services provided by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, what follows will sound familiar. If you’re not, keep reading: Chances are you have a neighbor, friend, or family member who has experienced this; they may just not want to talk about it.

Here’s what I saw when I accompanied a neighbor to a DHHR office: 

1. An understaffed system. People who work at DHHR mean well. They’re just understaffed, underpaid, and overworked, so they make mistakes. When they make mistakes, people lose healthcare and food.

2. Inconvenient, impossible timing. The person I was helping worked at Kroger. DHHR hours are between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., when he would’ve been working, so he was forced to take time off. We had to stay there for 3.5 hours. Luckily, we had all his paperwork in order. If we hadn’t, we’d have needed to come back another time.

3. Make more, lose everything. Our social service system has drastic funding cliffs, meaning that when you make a dime more than a certain threshold, you lose all your benefits. Under that reality, what are the working poor’s incentives to get promotions, more skills, or better jobs? 

   
   

 Let’s talk about what a DHHR Chutes and Ladders should look like: It would help people who are down on their luck, whether that’s trying to recover from addiction or a major accident. It would give other people skills to get healthier, become more productive, and earn more. It would efficiently support people and adapt to their needs. Such a system would be built of sturdy ladders, and that’s what I would work for as your member of Congress.

That’s not what we have. Instead, for decades, we’ve had slippery chutes and broken ladders. The “Big Beautiful Bill,” which was championed by both our members of Congress and both senators, made things worse. It made the slides steeper, defunded the social service system that helps people navigate their benefits, and buried our most vulnerable neighbors in paperwork and red tape. 

Your elected officials did all that and—in a true act of political cowardice—scheduled the worst problems to take effect right after the 2026 elections. If they were proud of the legislation, they would’ve made it effective upon passage or as soon as practical. They didn’t. Their goal is to bury vulnerable people in paperwork. That was their entire cost-saving “strategy.” If that sounds mean, it’s because it is.

We can do better, West Virginia. 

Let’s start by overturning every aspect of the cruel Big Monstrous Bill, which balloons the deficit, creates unnecessary red tape, and declares war on the poor and the middle class. Once we’ve removed it, let’s create a system that actually helps people, by investing in trained social workers who facilitate navigation of the system and creating real incentives for upward mobility. 

I started this post by noting that a Chutes and Ladders game with big chutes and no ladders is no fun. But we’re not designing a game. We’re designing a way to get people the help and support they need to learn skills and achieve financial stability.  There is a much fairer, better, more humane way to run a social service system, and it starts with recognizing that the working poor aren’t trying to have fun or game the system. They’re just desperately trying to make ends meet.