"I know this person on welfare who has a lot of nice stuff, so they must be abusing welfare, and in fact the whole system must be being abused!"

That's the standard rhetorical justification for the need to scrap the whole thing. I don't buy it.

So a single mother who only can work as a manager in a grocery store, or whatever the case may be, is able to lead a nice-on-the-surface existence. Consumers in this country are so conditioned to buy stuff and they all take on debt that far outpaces their income. What if this person has a pattern of buying stuff to put on appearances of having a normal income level despite their lower-than-average means?

So when someone is living beyond their means and they just so happen to be on welfare, I guess they MUST be abusing the system. I mean there's no other logical explanation for it; it's not like our entire society is based around the ability to buy stuff on credit.

Anecdotal examples do not define a trend. Furthermore, anecdotal examples that aren't even conclusive in and of themselves are even less useful.