Population Association Of America Summary

Federal Government has the ability to create positive change in many social welfare systems. The support of the government ultimately determines the success of a social welfare program. They play an important role in the decisions of how funds are allocated and the importance of these various vulnerable populations. The federal government is used as a tool, to help implement and support social welfare programs. However, from my own opinion, it is sometimes lacking in the proper support needed in many aspects. This is caused by a plethora of reasons, not to say that the government is completely unsupportive. Yet, there may be a gap in the perception of these social issues. The government puts in place laws, regulations, system structures, and so on. Therefore, because the government are the implementers of how our country is ran, it is their responsibility to be a main facets in the support of the gaps that inevitably occur. Nonetheless, it can be difficult to understand the needs of these population’s and the reality of their hardships. Most in a position of power, such as the federal government, have not experienced the severity of the many situations, that results in individuals needing assistance from these social welfare programs. Moreover, it is essential that there is outreach to these populations. All the same, getting a more realistic view of the life in these contexts. For instance, the time cap of being on assistance throughout one’s

Welfare has been an arguable topic throughout United States history (“Brief”). Some people agree with it and others do not like it at all. Welfare did not exist until the 1930s during The Great Depression (“Brief”). With millions of people unemployed, Franklin D. Roosevelt developed the welfare system to help these people during the Great Depression (“Brief”). After the Great Depression was over,, the government came up with new programs to help assist the welfare program and help more people in poverty (“Brief”). Some of those programs were Medicaid, public housing, food stamps, and Supplemental Security programs (“Brief”). Theses programs helped and hurt the country at the same time (“Brief”). By having these programs, many people would not look for jobs because they knew they were better off living on welfare (“Brief”).

David Zucchino’s captivating book, Myth of the Welfare Queen, sticks to his journalistic roots and reads like an extended news article as it captures two separate yet interconnected stories of women struggling to get by in Northern Philadelphia. Philadelphia was—and is—an impoverished city in many ways, with huge percentages of the population struggling to get by at or bellow the poverty line. Zucchino spent much of 1995 with woman and families on welfare as it was a time when welfare was a particularly hot topic directly preceding the passing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Zucchino strove to cut through the stereotypes and misinformation surrounding welfare and those relying on it. In his own words, “this book is the story of

Poverty is present in today’s U.S. social system. For example, as Lesser states in the Clearinghouse Review, “Forty-six million Americans live in poverty” (1). Lesser then goes on to say how forty-six million Americans living in poverty correlates to almost one in every three single-parent families is poor (1). This is a daunting fact as it applies to today’s economic context with “rising unemployment rates and mortgage crises driving more individuals and families to seek the support of a cash-strapped social welfare structure” (Grijalva 1). With this in mind, many legislators are discussing the topic of poverty in the political realm. In order to tally the score of representatives the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law conducted its sixth annual Poverty Scorecard. “The 2012 Poverty Scorecard grades the voting record of every U.S. senator and representative on the most important poverty-related votes in 2012” (Lesser 1). The 2012 votes covered a range of topics such as budget and tax, food and nutrition, health care, housing, and many more (1). The results of the 2012 Poverty

It is important to discuss the history of the emergence of this social problem. I will discuss the essence of poverty as a social problem and how that has affected how welfare is distributed among single mothers. Some factors that contributed to this social problem are the economy and he increasing amount of people who lived in poverty. The government felt that it was necessary to be proactive about the growing issue of poverty. The government was also taking a look at how money was being spent and how that contributed to the nation’s debt. As a result some policies were put into place to address those issues. Many programs were on a trial and error period to determine the success rate of that program. If the social program had expenses that seemed to add to the deficit then those programs were either revamped or eliminated. It is important to examine how Welfare has changed from the Colonial period to present.

Still, Darity and Meyers acknowledge the cost of cutting welfare to low-income black families. Any widespread welfare changes would substantially affect the well-being of many women-headed black families, especially those with young children. Their research shows that “curtailing welfare income -- either by limiting eligibility or by cutting guarantees -- also can reverse the rise in female-headed families, according to the estimates. But at what price? The homicide and incarceration impacts come by way of a

One of the problems that poverty presented in the expansion of the newly born Republic was a building of tension between the government and welfare recipients over aid benefits. The very idea of what constituted someone in poverty, what aid should be given, and to whom by whom was vigorously debated. It was thought that poverty would impact the developing patriarchal American society, so much so that public officials “worried that generous relief programs encouraged the poor to live on the public’s expense.” The government struggled with the type and amount to provide to those in need and they quickly learned that not all of the welfare programs necessarily met the demands of those living in poverty. The welfare recipients in the new Republic had the potential to disrupt the social and political structures of the government, especially a newly formed one, by burdening its taxpayers. Even in a country, like the United States, with opportunities to make a living wage, a welfare system to provide additional resources, and religious backers to support “paupers openly mocked the values of thrift, sobriety, and self-control.”

In Leslie Reynolds’ “Misuse of Welfare in American Low Class Citizens,” she employs various logical methods to support her argument that welfare in the United States is being misused by our citizens and something must be done to prevent the welfare misuse. Reynolds relies on definition, facts, statistics, personal and public experience, and also tries to find different solutions for this heavily impacted issue. Reynolds believes something should be done to prevent the many low class recipients from abusing and misusing the welfare system. For example, Reynolds suggests the government could restart the welfare system, have stricter guidelines, and have more monitoring of the system itself to prevent our money being misled. Reynolds blends her

Sykes (2015) had found that families felt a relief from financial stress when it came to receiving their yearly lump sum from the government. They were able to pay back many of their debts, just as a responsible family should. This allowed them to enhance the amount of consumption they were given leeway for. Such as toys or brand name foods. For families in Welfare who were given limited room to grow, EITC left enough money to lift dreams off the ground and making it possible for families to invest in their futures. All of these factors made it easier for the families to feel a sense of citizenship. Social inclusion plays a larger factor than once thought. Using government programs like SNAP (food stamps) ostracized people in public areas; making it difficult to feel proud or in a sense “normal”. I strongly believe that this article found what they set out to look for. The results clearly show that EITC gave low wage families a sense of dignity, but since the population interviewed and tracked was so small it’s difficult to believe that all families in the same program live entirely the same.

During a campaign speech in 1776, then candidate Ronald Reagan gave an image to the world, the “Welfare Queen.” A fictitious woman who ardently abused the welfare system and wasted taxpayer money. He used this image to begin his battle for dismantling the welfare system, and even after his death in 2004, this idea he put into the U.S. mindset still exists. That those on welfare abuse the system, are addicted to drugs, and don’t deserve the help given to them. As of 2015, 43.1 million people lived below the poverty line in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and in the U.S., terms like “poverty”, “welfare”, and “poor”, still seem to be pretty negatively charged.

Throughout both in-class discussions, and David Shipler’s “The Working Poor: Invisible in America” we learned being poor in America is anything but easy. Even with all of our government assistance programs such as Medicaid and Welfare, many family generation after generation seem to fall below the poverty line and create a life of struggle and long way out for their families. When Shipler is explaining different families and their lac of self control in saving the little money they do earn, it makes you question if the have the know how to get out of poverty, or even in some cases even want to due to their different spending habits than successful people, falling into credit traps, and buying the un-necessary.

Critchlow book provides an examination of past attempts, both in this country and abroad, to balance the efforts of private charity and public welfare. Critchlow argues that this collection it demonstrates how solutions to poverty are functions of culture, religion, and politics, and how social provisions for the poor have evolved across the centuries. This book will give readers more of an insight on how the public welfare and private charity affected Americans during the Depression. More so, on survival and how Americans were able to deal on all the changes that their government went through. While a few were able to get by, many fell through the cracks and government assistance was needed to survive.

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.

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).

Someone, in state and congress has tried to reform welfare; the continuing growth of welfare systems has not been corrected, to stop young girls from receiving welfare benefits. Any, American taxpayer’s has seemed that welfare systems go for a long-term life span, instead of a short term to get young women off welfare. There, has been more welfare giving to younger women who have more kids out of wedlock. Everybody, often hear it said, the more generous the government is the more, welfare, instead of finding a job to take care of their family.