Social Welfare Policies

The practice of social work has evolved from three major movements, The Charity Organizations, Settlement Houses, and Child Saving Movements. “Charity organization societies were developed by philanthropists to regulate the use of charitable agencies by the poor” (pg. 52). This society was organized to assist the needy, but also to ensure that they only received help from one charity. There is a stigma that people should not be helped too much or they will become reliant on the assistance of the government. Our role as a social worker is to make sure that people are getting as much assistance as they need. Some people have no choice and do have to rely on

In 1996, former President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PWORA), which brought reform to the welfare system. Under this act, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was replaced with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The enactment of this new program brought about several changes, including transferring the responsibility of welfare from the federal level to the state level, disentitlement to public assistance, and the implementation of work requirements to receive aid (Karger and Stoesz, 2014, p. 228). As social workers, it is important to understand this act and how it fits into our professional goals. While TANF does reflect many of the standards put in place by the National

In this paper I will illustrate problems and issues that need to be addressed in the TANF program and the significant importance of why we need reform. Social policy is designed to create a safety net for people that face poverty. Our text state Social Policies are laws, rules, and regulations, that govern the benefits and services provided by the government and private organizations to assist people in meeting their needs (Chapin,2017, pg. 2). Social policy helps to form America yet, due to limited funding of programs they are unable to assist each individual that may need or require assistance.

Americans all across the nation have become blind to the fact that the welfare system has created a sense of comfortable distress amongst them; Americans feel safe with knowing that they have benefits to turn to when in need but are also distraught about the actions and well-beings of the welfare system in future times because they are so comfortable with the system. With so many bad effects outweighing the good effects that welfare programs bring to the table, there is a need to say that these programs are temporarily helpful but not valuable towards society. The current welfare programs that are established are not beneficial towards the progression of society because the programs deprive the independence of individuals, allow continuous poverty to still be an economic issue, and intensify the fraudulent cases of criminal activity.

Various research have been conducted surrounding the effects of welfare on families and individuals. Welfare may not seem like a big deal in America, but we are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on welfare a year. The many programs inside welfare do have some benefits as well as shortcomings. Education declines and work incentives are just some of the major issues that surface from being on welfare. Although advocates of welfare believe it is supporting the poor, the programs within welfare are decreasing the positive numbers of education and work while raising questions of whether or not reform has been beneficial. Welfare reform has been an issue since the 1970s (Moffitt 2015). Regardless of the new programs put into place, the wanted

Social workers are heavily involved in welfare reform, which is seen behind Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Woodside, 2001). TANF provides certain families such as those

Many of the conflicting interests between different parties in the U.S. are what shaped our social welfare laws from the colonial period and after the civil war. When looking at the conflicts we faced back then, it is evident that the greater outlook in society was based off of morals and the Christian view our country was built on. These beliefs are still very prominent in our thinking as a society today although there have been some changes in our social welfare, that go against “the law of our creator”. One of the main conflicts that occurred after the civil war was specific to the growing population of immigrants. The conflict arose when many of the new immigrants began to take jobs in the mines, steel mills, textile factories, and other

According to the US Census Bureau, about 274,000 people, or 10 percent of the population in Chicago, Illinois are living in deep poverty (Emmanuel, 2015). Despite its high poverty rates, welfare in Chicago has always been small by any measure. At its peak in the 1990s, only 5 million families received assistance, averaging less than $400 a family (Piven, 2002). Frances Fox Piven believes that “changes in welfare were related to shifts that were occurring in a range of American social policies” (Piven, 2002). In July 1996, current welfare policies were replaced with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) which provided block grants to the states for cash assistance (Piven, 2002). The goal of this policy was to “end

The United States welfare policy is designed to aid sick, aging, and disabled Americans through programs consisting like SNAP, Social Security, and Medicare. While these programs have a simple mission of helping those in need, they are muddled by a complex and sometimes inefficient bureaucracy. This intensive analysis will seek to address each of the following:

Social welfare is the promotion and distribution of material and physical aid by the government for citizens in need. A lot of people think just because you are on Welfare that you’re automatically living off the government but that’s not true, they think you’re too lazy to get a job, but that’s not true at all. I was once on Welfare when I had my little girl when I was living with my grandmother. I had Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, and Family first for they both of us. I had to get on Welfare to get my child in daycare, so I can find a job, but in order for me to do that I had to put her father on child support. Before they approved my welfare my child’s father and I had to take an DNA test, to prove that he was the father before they put him on child support. Most teenage girls are out having sex with multiple guys with no job, education, or any type of positive goals. They think if they get pregnant by a guy, he’ll stay, but that’s not true at all. Just because a guy gets a female pregnant doesn’t mean he has the right or authority to be with the females. They can always pay their child support for the child an do what they have to do too take care of them without the child’s mother say so. Most of these ladies depend on Welfare to do everything for them instead of trying to do for themselves its not hard to try and find an job and do what you have to do o take care of your child. Children are not asked to be in this world, which means its ladies responsibilities to their

The welfare policy is one mirrored by ideology and negativity, with few satisfied with its current status. The conservatives think of it as some kind of “culture of poverty,” personal choice (Furlong, 2013, p. 328) that is riddled with fraud and waste. While the liberals, site welfare as a state of unequal opportunities caused by unfair economics or less than ideal social conditions beyond their control (Furlong, 2013, p. 328). The conservative see the failures and the liberals see the need to expand on possibly successes. Both sides share the necessity of reform equivalently. However, coming from these extreme perspectives the solutions remained far apart.

You noted in your post that “social welfare program was created to help individuals in society improve their own life; however, the program must also maintain control within society”. Where you surprised by the notion that programs are used to maintain control within society? I found a few passages from our weekly readings regarding the need to control society through social welfare programs a little unsettling and have spent the last day reflecting upon them trying to figure out what it is that bothers me about the passages. According to Day and Scheile (2012), “social welfare is based partly on the need to control the poor and keep works available for low-wages work” (p. 17) and “poverty does not “just happen”…The gap is maintained through

Yes, the policies are tools which is used by the government to control the citizen like for example the welfare is a government assistance program to see how much money you bring home from your employer to see if you quality for the assistance of the help of the government program you are applying for. Also you have to be an certain age to collect your social security at the age 65 which you are still working for your employer and if you try to apply for your social security while you are still working you will get denied or have to get your weekly hours cut down to part-time so you can get the full amount of your social security that you work for all the years of your life. Although another behavior would be the welfare program is financed

In Double Standard, James Russell discusses and compares the social policy welfare programs in the United States and Europe and how each country approaches the issue. In particularly, Russell explains how poverty is measured, poverty reduction, and the politics of poverty reduction. Research shows that poverty has been a social problem for over five decades in America. During the 1960’s, the issue of poverty was first identified as a social problem and countless efforts have been made to eradicate poverty in the United States. In 1964, the Kennedy-Johnson administration declared a “War on Poverty” after the publication of Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America (1962). His book exposed how the other half lived in American society and became influential in beginning the process of addressing poverty. Harrington’s views on poverty prompted government officials to initiate several social policies that resulted in a significant decline in poverty rates across America during the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s and beyond.

Social workers promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients. “Clients” is used inclusively to refer to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Social workers are sensitive to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. These activities may be in the form of direct practice, community organizing, supervision, consultation administration, advocacy, social and political action, policy development and application, education, research and evaluation. Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs. They also seek to promote the