Disability Of Welfare

The welfare system has been controversial throughout U.S. history. It is constantly under attack and is often the chosen topic of political debates. In 2015, 35.4% of Americans were on welfare (Boyd). Welfare is a government ran program, where the government gives benefits to people who cannot afford to take care of themselves or their family (“Brief”). The benefits that the government gives to the people are money and the necessities they need to live a normal life (“Welfare” 825). The welfare system is an interesting topic and has many layers. Although it is necessary, at the same time it is frustrating for many politicians and U.S. citizens. Numerous people abuse the welfare system everyday. People have found many ways to take

America spends an annual amount of 131.9 billion dollars on welfare alone (Department of Commerce). So many facts about welfare are overwhelming, such that over 12,800,000 Americans are on the welfare system. The entire social welfare system is in desperate need of a complete reform. In order for a proper reform to ensue, the people of America must combine efforts with the U.S. government to revitalize the current welfare system. This reform would involve answering two important questions. First, how has today’s welfare system strayed from its original state and secondly, how is the system abused by welfare holders in today’s economy?

Through interviews with welfare workers and recipients, Hays demonstrates the high costs welfare has had on the moral, economic, physical and mental well-being of poor women and their children due to what she considers to be the conflict between the two opposing aspects of reform: work values and family values. She believes that these conflicting values and the inherent weaknesses in the Act contribute to serious and ongoing problems for welfare recipients.

Thousands of people are signed up to receive welfare in America, this program is designed to aid poor and needy families. However, it has become some people’s way of earning an income. Several argue against and say that welfare is not destroying our country and creating a dependent people who have learned to abuse certain privileges that come with living in this nation.

This paper will analyze the welfare reform system. Through my analysis I will examine several areas of concern in the welfare reform system. First, as an overview, I will look at the Personal Responsibility & Work Opportunity Act. Second, I will look at the Welfare to Workfare program. We will then examine how welfare recipients with disabilities will be handled under this new reform and finally this paper will examine how the federal government plans on if at all ensuring job retention occurs.

The social welfare system in the United States can be a controversial topic especially now with the new presidential elect. For this paper I was assigned to look into two different peoples perceptions and attitudes on the social welfare system. I looked into how they perceived the system and whom they believed benefits from this system. Throughout this paper the identities of the two people I interviewed will not be revealed. I will simply refer to them in pronouns. My goal during this interview was not to educate my two interviewees so some of the information contained in this paper may not be accurate. Throughout this paper the two interviewees opinions will be stated and their opinions will then be compared and discussed. Although the whole population of the United States is experiencing the same welfare system each individual perceives and has different beliefs about the system.

The topic of this paper is to shed light on the issue of welfare. The original purpose and intent for social welfare was to temporarily ease the plight of the poor at no cost to the middle and upper class. Overtime, it has become a burden America’s taxpayers have had to unrightfully carry. Welfare has been reformed in the past, but many still believe it is a failing program. Citizens and non citizens are both taking advantage of the program that was intended to help. Even after multiple reformations, this program continues to fall back into the same issues repeatedly. Taking care of the poor was not intended to be the role of the government. Biblically, that job has been delegated to the church. Social welfare is giving the government more

Welfare abuse is a severe problem across the country. Each year, millions of Americans receive government benefits such as housing assistance, food stamps, telephone service, and other funds. Welfare is a kind of system that is being set by a government to help and assist families and individuals who are having a hard time providing for themselves such as food, clothing, education and health assistance. This program helped many families survive during The Great Depression and still helps families survive today. Welfare, which was once meant to help individuals re enter society, has been abused and manipulated. The abuse of the Welfare System has become a serious problem. Many dependent persons rely mainly on welfare for their sole source of

Public welfare is the term which stands for the variety of tax-supported programs that provide cash assistance or services to residents who are not able to financially take care of themselves (Hansan, 2011). This program was started in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. There are several types of welfare including health care, food stamps, child care assistance, cash aid, and housing assistance. Medicaid is considered to be one of the welfare programs; it is a medical care that provides cash income assistance for the poor (“Medicaid”, 2002). Recipients must meet multiple requirements that are established prior to receiving aid. The requirements include low income, child dependency, family size, and any crisis situation such as pregnancy, unemployment, and medical emergencies (Welfare Information, n.d.). As of today, some states require welfare recipients to get drug tested when applying for financial benefits. Arguments arose whether the test should take place or not. Many people believe that the government should not drug test welfare recipients because unpleasant consequences occur. Not only does drug testing recipients create chaos in the U.S. bureaucratic system, it also labels the recipients, creating stigma and deviance especially if the test comes out positive. Welfare recipients are being discriminated by society and this may lead to knowledge gaps between the underclass and other social classes which creates a caste system. Many negative effects take place as

As Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist once famously said, “It’s about the economy stupid!” This world is run by money, and inevitably there are the haves and the have-nots. The welfare state is a system which offers a grouping of benefits geared towards helping all members of society achieve prosperity and be successful members of society, however it is often criticized and debated in the US. The welfare state is not obsolete, as it fosters educational development to help solidify the future, and keeps from creating a reliance on welfare, all without excessively depleting the US of its monetary funds.

It is argued that since the implementation of the (PWA) the number of welfare participants who receive welfare benefits has been decreasing at record rates. As reported in What Has Welfare Reform Accomplished? Impacts On Welfare Participation, Employment, Income, Poverty, and Family Structure by Robert Schoeni, “After peaking in 1994, welfare caseloads had dropped 50 percent by June 1999; at that time, just 6.9 million 4 people representing 2.5 percent of the population were receiving welfare. Not since 1967 has such a small share of the population relied on welfare” (Schoeni, et.al, 2000, p. 3). In addition, his data shows a decline “Between January 1997 and December 1999, 1.8 million families left the welfare rolls, almost double the number that moved out of welfare in the three previous years (Schoeni, et.al, 2000, p. 4). Other research shows similar data, for instance, “In 1994, 5.5 percent of the U.S. population was dependent on welfare; 5 years, and a series of state and federal welfare reforms later, the proportion had shrunk to 2.3 percent” (Kaushal, et.al, 2001, p.2). The decline in welfare rolls have been attributed to two things, first, the increment of jobs in the labor

In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act which, among other things, provided for the financial, medical, and material needs of the poor (Komisar 125,128). Since then, there have many additions and reforms to the bill, none of which has served to quell the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the welfare system in the United States. The main concerns of the distribution of welfare dollars and resources can be answered by the questions ?Who gets assistance?? and ?How much do they receive??. The U.S. welfare system is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, which attempts to answer these questions through a system of minimum incomes, government-calculated poverty levels, number of children, health problems, and many other criteria. This complicated system leads to one of the critiques of the welfare system?that it is too large and inefficient. President Lyndon Johnson declared a ?War on Poverty? in 1964 designed to alleviate the burden of the poor and established the Food Stamp program the next year (Patterson 139). In 1996, a major welfare reform bill was passed that placed time limits on welfare assistance, required able participants to actively seek employment, and implemented additional services for the needy (Patterson 217).

United States Government Welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt thought of this system as an aid for low-income families whose men were off to war, or injured while at war. The welfare system proved to be beneficial early on by giving families temporary aid, just enough to help them accommodate their family’s needs. Fast forward almost 90 years, and it has become apparent that this one once helpful system, has become flawed. Welfare itself and the ideologies it stands on, contains decent fundamentals; furthermore, this system of aid needs only to be reformed to better meet the needs of today’s society.

The history of welfare reform reveals that the question of personal responsibility versus assistance to those in need has been a constant in the debate over welfare. In the 1950s and 1960s, welfare reform was limited to various states' attempts to impose residency requirements on welfare applicants and remove illegitimate children from the welfare rolls. During the 1970s advocates of welfare reform promoted the theory of

Throughout history, there have always been people willing to work for what they want, and those who expect things to be handed to them as if it was a natural-born right. While the welfare system does positively impact some families in need, many people take advantage of it. With this being a well known fact, the government still continues to use ten percent of the federal budget on welfare (“Budget” 1).