Single Parent Households

First, if the government were to make welfare eligibility stricter it would impede on the attempts of those below the poverty line trying to find a job. TANF ?can free up additional dollars for work related expenses and other basic needs and thus aid families? efforts to move from welfare to work? (Sard and Daskal). It is needed to help pay for those ?necessities that often accompany employment, such as additional clothing and food costs, child care, and transportation to and from work? (Sard and Daskal). The program does not just hand out money, but provides the aid needed to ?achieve self-sufficiency? through employment (Cohn). Without the additional money for clothing, food costs, child care, and transportation, an individual would not be able to maintain employment and abide by the TANF requirements. It is evident that TANF is necessary for those individuals that live in poverty and are seeking employment. If the requirements were to become stricter, the number of the employed and those living below the poverty line would increase simultaneously.

I believe that society has changed for the worse. The reason I believe this is because society in the past was much simpler. There was not a lot of technology available to individuals. People are starting to lose the art of communication. Instead people text one another in text lingo versus using proper grammar. Family units in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's were much different than they are today. There were more families with two parents in the home. There was less single parent household or step parent households. the more society evolve and changes the worse our society is becoming. The more technology is incorporated into our lives the further people seem to be getting from one another. In the 1950's a traditional household consisted of one mother, one father, two or three children, and a

SNAP is the foundation of nutrition assistance programs. This program provides over 47 million individuals in nearly 23 million low-income households. The eligibility is not restricted to certain groups of individuals, and because of this, SNAP serves a vast amount of families with children, elderly people, and individuals with disabilities. Others eligible for SNAP include families with adults who work in low-wage jobs, unemployed workers, and those with a fixed income. The SNAP Program assists about 72 percent of people who live in households with children. Nearly 25 percent of households with seniors and individuals with disabilities, are also assisted (Rosenbaum, 2013).

In 1996 the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant was created as a way to provide assistance to needy families and to end the dependence on government benefits through encouraging job preparation, marriage with the formation of two parent families, and work. In reality, TANF has created a weakened safety net and provides less protection for individuals facing poverty. It grants less assistance than before to lessen poverty and the hardship that comes along with it. The policy has become more of a Band-Aid that is continually ripped off due to its sanctions and requirements revealing the same deeper issues that were there in the first place. Families are stuck in a hole of poverty where they cannot climb out of, and policies like TANF help to maintain it. Since the year 2000, poverty in the U.S has been on the rise, especially the increase in deep poverty. The number of families in deep poverty rose from 2.7 million to 3 million between 1996 and 2013. This is an extremely important issue that we are currently facing in our country. More time and effort needs to be spent on both the creation and reformation of policies like TANF to help combat this rising issue in our country.

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.

Medicaid, WIC Programs, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as “food stamps”, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and HUD which deals with housing are only a few of the programs that are available for the poor and underemployed today. These government programs cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. State and federal government try every year to reduce programs. In Mississippi, Medicaid has been reduced although children and the disabled are still covered. SNAP commonly known as food stamps have also been reduce and restricted to balance both the state and federal government. At the height of the recession, the last few years, has increased the number of single bread winner families seeking help by applying for government welfare programs. We often hear of people selling their food stamps for things that are not approved. These stories are used by the people who do not think that tax money should be used to support people who do not work. Changing the name of “welfare” to TANF has not slowed the

TANF which is a program that provides cash assistance to needy families. The state is permitted to drug-test these recipients. Although the states must have a “reasonable suspicion” of illicit drug use in order to perform the test. TANF and SNAP are two very closely related programs. Administrators have tried to limit assistance to only “worthy” families. The definition of a worthy family has changed over the years. In the past it was based on a families morals. As where today it is base on crime and drugs.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is intended to assist families that are living in poverty to achieve self-sufficiency by providing the family with cash benefits. The TANF program has several characteristics of early U.S. social welfare programs. Although today, the policies regarding the TANF program are much different than the early programs and changes continue to occur to change the TANF policy. Today the TANF policy provides funding sources, strict income limits, and has incorporated employment programs to promote self-sufficiency of individuals that receive benefits, to name just a few.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as TANF, is a federally-funded program that is run by states providing limited cash assistance to parent and their children who have a very low income. This program is only limited to certain people and it provides some assistances to parents who only receives a small income or no income at all and very few assets for a long period of time (familyequality.org).

In 1996, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced the long-standing federal welfare program, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PROWA) and greatly reduced access to cash assistance for families with children (Danziger & Ratner 2010). The goal was to reduce the nation's dependence on welfare and transition welfare recipients to employment. However, people who seek out the benefits that TANF provides often have other barriers to employment such as low educational levels, limited or no work experience or skills, physical and mental health problems, and other hardships such as difficulty attaining adequate childcare or homelessness. The majority of those who seek out assistance from welfare

As one of the most well-known assistance programs given to needy families around the country, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is meant to aid those who have fallen under the poverty line with children. After the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was ended, TANF took its place as part of the Deficit Reduction Act (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). In theory, this program would seem to help those who are struggling to provide for their families. However, the rules in place for families to receive the aid and the amount given actually keep those families from rising above the poverty lines. Like many others, Gerard Costa and his family have been in and out of this program hoping to find the aid they need to live sufficiently.

In 1996, the federal government came to the conclusion that the welfare system should be placed in the hands of the state governments. With this in mind, the Temporary Aid to Needy Families was established. The TANF is more governed towards getting people back into the workforce by requiring recipients to engage in job searches, and participate in community service. The previous phase of welfare was more for providing people with capital in the hopes that he/she would use it to get back on his/her feet. The TANF is still known as welfare to the public (“Government Spends”). In the new welfare program,

The SNAP program is based on the gross income a family makes and does not take into account the expenses that the family has such as school loans, car payments, and even household items such as diapers. Due to this system, many people who are working and making an effort to improve their lives are unable to make progress because this type of

     The Social Security program provides benefit payments to workers who are too severely disabled to engage in gainful employment. In order to be eligible for such benefits, an individual’s disability must have existed for at least 6 month and must be expected to continue for at least 12 months. Those eligible for disability benefits must have worked under Social Security for a t least 5 out of the 10 years before becoming disabled. Disability benefits, which include auxiliary benefits for dependents, are computed on the same basis as retirement benefits and are converted to retirement

As this crisis of single parent household continues children that are place within BBBSA program are benefited because they receive social support that is able to help them understand gender roles and perform better in school. Amato says that, children in single parent homes are having to deal with the actual effects [single parent households] because they will get less financial support, affection, information, direction, observation, and less role modeling from an adult (Hippmann-West, 2001, p. 18). This statement by Amato supports the idea by many religious groups in America that believe that children are better off with two adults in the home. This statement also outlines some of the deficiencies these children are more probable to have which makes a case for the need of a complete solution. In connection with this idea of children receiving less support, Takako explains (2002) that “Generally speaking, a child grows up taking the parent of the same sex as a model.[For a single parent child], [one of the] model[s] is not present; and such children may have difficulty in adopting the attitudes and behavior patterns of their respective sex” ( pg 4). In other words the earlier a child loses an example the more likely they are to have gender gaps and this may create problem in their interpersonal life later on. When these children become parents, the habitual interaction styles they have used in their interaction with other people extend to their children. In order to