Family Support Act Essay

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 was an attempt by the government to get people to be more efficient and less reliant on the government. There was a sort of “exchange” between the government and citizens. Citizens work and in return they receive financial assistances. This is referred to as the TANF, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. It was supposed to motivate people to work, or that was the goal. Recipients were required to work at least 20 hours a week. This was actually successful in decreasing the number of Americans who were dependent on welfare systems. As diversity greatly increased, the need for welfare also increased. Welfare reform efforts were attempted because of the various changes occurring. Welfare in the United States is

It focuses on support to families and carers for effective parenting, fostering or child care.

Life isn't worth living if you are not willing to accept the challenges thrown your way. How I grew up wasn't easy. It, instead, was rousing from being adopted out of China, learning a new culture, to facing some hindrance. Nevertheless, I couldn't have done this on my own. With the help of God all things are possible.

In the 1960’s the ADC ballooned into Aid to Dependent Families and Children allowing the stipend to increase to involve the caregiver. The Families used ADFC income to pay for expenses such as rent, utilities, food and other needs (hhs.state.ne.us,2009). ADFC discouraged marriage, pursuing a job which created a dependency on the program. By 1996, TANF was created to replace ADFC and created caps on the system. TANF is public assistance that requires participants to maintain a job and they can only receive benefits for a total of five years. People who qualify for TANF fall under the public’s eye as having a worthiness problem (N. Reid, personal communication, November, 2010). People tend to judge recipients of TANF creating harsh criticism about the program.

While welfare reform did benefit many people, welfare reform ended up costing the government more in "tax credits, food stamps, and Medicaid," according to CBO (Washington Post). This was essentially welfare all over again wrapped in a less conspicuous packaging. Moreover, most families in poverty do not receive welfare. Just a little above 23 percent of all families with children living in poverty receive aid, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is because of the strict policies and hidden limitations that the new reform set. Education and training were required to get a mandatory job which then allowed for one to receive welfare. Also committing a crime would void welfare, even if it was done to feed one's family according to the article, Picture this: Images and Realities in Welfare to Work (italicize), by Olson, Muhammad, Rodgers, and Karim. The reality is that many of the ads for the new welfare system were "misleading...[as many realized] that they would need education and training to get jobs that would allow them to support their families" (Karim). It was like asking someone to commit to two things separately in separate places. It was almost impossible to keep track of one's family and train and go to school at the same time. Hence, about 67% of families in poverty did not receive welfare. In fact, most of the job opportunities that were shown did not "pay enough to really

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act also shifted the spotlight of welfare from family maintenance through government-supported financial assistance to family economic self-sufficiency through paid employment. This federal welfare reform policy known as TANF encourages employment and personal responsibility by mandating states to provide financial benefits to families on a temporary basis, having recipients participate in a work requirement while receiving aid, and providing incentives for recipients to transition off welfare. The programs name indicated its purpose and the social message to the recipient.

In August 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) passed. This legislation ended the Family Aid with Dependent Children (AFDC) and replaced it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Unlike AFDC, TANF is not an entitlement program. This means that states are under no obligation to provide cash assistance to eligible families. Instead the federal government gives block grants to assist poor families with the emphasis on moving them from welfare to work or deterring them from applying for welfare in the first place. States are no longer obligated to match federal funds, creating an incentive to eliminate their previous portion of the funding for critical programs. Now due to

The welfare reform law in 1996 mostly tried to solve marital evils rather than efficiently dealing with welfare. It encouraged marriage and attempted to lower single parenthood. However, when one looks at this issue, this is mostly a gender status issue rather than an income issue. Also, many policymakers impose conditions to families receiving governmental benefits. Although I acknowledge that these policies attempt to solve problems with poverty, I disagree with how the policymakers approach these issues. Instead of focusing on incomes of each family, they mainly focused solving social issues. Would you say that poverty is caused by single mothers? What if I told you that marriage rates have fallen since the 1960s? Our policies are indifferent to these questions. The policies mainly focused on the shortcomings of the poor rather than trying to save them from poverty. J.D. Vance mentioned that low-income children face childhood trauma that affects them, and the despair and low social capital these families are going through. Focusing on the crimes parents do mainly out of desperation rather than malicious intent to pass welfare bills would be even more traumatizing to kids. We probably are not doing much to help the impoverished if we are focused attacking the moral shortcomings of poor families rather than implementing policies to help families in general.

This paper will look into family dependency treatment court (FDTC) also known as dependency drug court (DDC). The paper will examine the question: How

for most of the child welfare system’s history, most states did little to prepare the children in their custody for life in the real world. The federal government offered no financial help to the states to assist emancipating youth until 1986, when for the first time, Congress passed a law authorizing limited “independent living” efforts. Over the next fifteen years, about two-thirds of older youth in foster care received some sort of assistance in building independent living skills, ranging from a thirty minute course on resume writing to an eight-week course in household management. The 1986 law was seriously flawed because it only paid for skill-building services to youth between the ages of sixteen and

The purpose of TANF was to discourage teens from having more babies by requiring them to live at home and also stay in school to qualify for the benefits. The child exclusion law was also created to reduce the birth of children since the old system allowed access for women to receive a raise in welfare benefits for every child they had. AFDC seems to work for Elba compared to TANF. In my opinion, I feel that the policies are actually helpful because it is designed for women to focus on other ways for support, instead of the sole reliance of welfare. I believe the policies promote self-sufficiency and responsibility by requiring minors to continue their education. It also encourages women to work towards a more financially stable future.  In Elba’s case, however, I find this very difficult for her to attain, considering the fact that she is a minor and may not have all the education on what resources or services are available. She may not understand what she actually needs to do in order to receive benefits or have guidance on how to become more

First, the number of working parents in a single or two-parent household is increasing. Nowadays, usually both parents work in a two-parent household and the single parent works in a single-parent household. This law allows for the unity of the family structure. Another reason is that parents should be able to take some time off to spend with their newborn children. It is crucial that a baby be reared by his/her own parents so that the child can have a proper development. Also, if there is an ill family member, the employee should have a right to take time off to care for that ill member. One important issue was that people should not be forced to choose between their family or their job. A family is something very precious and should not be given up for anything. However, to provide for the family one needs to have a job to have income. One should not have to pick one or the other. This law allows the individual to keep both and not have to choose. By enacting this law, Congress relieved some of these issues of the family structure and job security.

The Social Security act benefited many people. Those who fell in this category were workers, victims of industrial accidents, unemployed insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, and the handicapped. This Social Security act was later signed into law, by current president at the time, Roosevelt. (Social Welfare History Project, n.d.) Moving along the line in 1970 was when the CWLA helped establish the National Foster Parents Association. In August 1971, this CWLA program received a three-year grant to create an organization based for foster parents. This association was established as an outcome of the concerns of the independent groups. The people felt that the country needed a program to meet the needs of the foster families in the U.S (Family Plus, n.d.). In 1980 the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare became law. The tenacity was to create a program of adoption assistance to ultimately serve different criteria’s. Its purpose was to strengthen the program of foster care assistance for the needy and dependent children, improve child welfare as well as social services and aid to families with dependent children programs (child Welfare Information Gateway, 2012). There are a myriad of different historical information that can lead and relate to the cause of the Child Welfare services. These are all just bits and pieces of importance that historically gives this program

The amount of child support cases in arrears would decline if a few things were changed, hopefully providing incentives to pay child support on time and regularly. There are also harsher consequences that could be carried out to prevent future mistakes. There are things being done, but is it enough? As it stands the noncustodial parent can face loss of visitation, probation, and even jail time for none payment of child support. By not enforcing court ordered child support and making examples out of those who are not in compliance, we are sending out a message that child support is more of an option than a legal obligation. Think about the ones who are really suffering here, the children involved.

The usefulness of just using support alone will only tell you how many times each item appear together based on the transactions in the bakery. The support values are smaller than I expected. The highest support is 0.053 (Apricot Danish & Cherry Tart). So the highest frequency an item in the bakery appears together is only 5.3%. This might be the case because depending on a customer’s “sweet tooth” the purchase may be different or the bakery has a different special going each day. I do not believe we can judge itemsets just on support alone, again because it is only base on when items appear together.