The Downsides of Government Handouts

The Great Depression was a very influential era in American history, affecting many future generations. One of the most prevalent impacts it had on society was the extreme poverty that swept across the nation, affecting both people in cities and in the country. The main cause for this poverty was the mass loss of jobs among the middle class. Millions lost their jobs and consequently their homes. Families lived out of tents and cars in shanty towns or Hoovervilles. In these camps, many people didn’t have their basic human needs met, children and adults alike starved. They lived in clothes that were caked in dirt and tattered, too small for growing children and too cold for the frail elderly. Government relief programs attempted to help but offered little support to the now impoverished families of the millions that lost everything.

During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the

Families found themselves setting up in a way unfamiliar before. The Depression bombarded families who lost everything in their saving accounts and were suddenly facing poverty. Around nine million families lost everything they had in the banks creating two kinds of poor; the poor who were already suffering to make a living and new the “new poor ,” middle class Americans losing their homes left and right. Men and women’s roles

“The Economic Policy Institute recently reviwed dozens of studies of what constitutes a “living wage” and came up with an average figure of $30,000 a year for a family of one adult and two children, which amounts to a wage of $14 an hour.” (213). According to Ehrenreich, about 60 percent of American workers earn less than $14 per hour. In all of places where Ehrenreich worked paid seven dollars or less per hour, which means those of people who work in those place cannot even afford to have some essentials services such as health insurance and telephone. Since they cannot even struggle to get out, politicians could takee an action; however, they didn't do any works. “The Democrats are not eager to find flaws in the period of “unprecedented prosperity” they take credit for; the Republicans have lost interest in the poor now that “welfare-as-we-know-it” has ended.” (217). And, they also had a catastrophic error. “In fact, very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform legislation bithely failed to incude any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition.” (217). Congressmen need to read this book to realize the problem, and not satisfy themselves by ignoring failures because they have

It was estimated that if the corporate welfare dollars were distributed to the poorest 10% of United States families, homes would receive an additional $47,000 dollars annually (Huff, 1993). Another concept that resonated with me what the government spending for corporate welfare in the 80’s. There was a great deal of spending even in the 80’s to various expenditures and subsidized services, there was 181 billion dollars spent (Huff, 1993). It was shocking to think of how much was spent and where the cuts were made. It seems there are some type of flaws and changed that could have been made to make a difference in this gap. The concepts will contribute to my practice because I now know how far these issues date back and where the problems in the system

However, US citizen begun to be uncomfortable with the old welfare system by the 1990’s because it did not offer incentive for the beneficiaries to seek for employment. The welfare became both rewarding and perpetuating even though it did not reduce the level of poverty in the United States.

Together, they made around $83,000 and had around $90,000 in assets which placed them solidly in the middle class. Twelve years later, Allison and David experienced setbacks but increased their income to about $125,000. Their financial assets quadrupled to a whopping $368,000 and saved up thousands of dollars for retirement. However, with the economy downsizing on the heels of the Great Recession and uneven job recovery heavily tilted toward low-wage jobs, David joined millions of other Americans in unemployment. Having spent half a year unemployed, David returned to work working at a significantly lower wage. Over the course of 12 years, David witnessed how work became less stable and more contingent for many Americans. The working experience illustrates a larger transformation in America’s employment landscape, away from middle-class jobs and jobs with significant benefits toward low-paying jobs with few benefits, accelerated by the Great Recession.

During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the

For a very long time there's been the debate over government assistance in america, admittedly there are plenty of pros and cons on either side of the argument, in this case I believe that the pros outweigh the cons. America should introduce a universal basic income as a replacement for all other government assistance in an effort to reduce government bureaucracy, improve standard of living, reduce the wealth gap, contribute to better working conditions and create social capital.

America (U.S) has economically hit its highs and lows over its 2 ½ centuries of its existence, but none have been more surprising than the Great Depression period from 1929-1933. During first major low in society the stock market crashed due to citizen’s overuse of credit. This wasn’t the only problem there was also a great drought in America’s agricultural plains. Many farmers lost their crops and most of their land, creating a small scale famine in the U.S. People were laid off and people couldn’t provide for their family. One citizen during this time still had a vivid memory of these times,”In New York neighborhoods adults stood in so called 'bread lines,' children begged in the streets.”

The United States is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Despite the high levels of affluence there are still millions of Americans that do not share this wealth. The deprivation of the basic necessities affects the quality of people’s lives. Unemployment comes in several forms and affects millions of people at any given time. People often find themselves out of a job because of the economy. Sometimes people have a job but the job that they are working is no longer thriving like they once was before.

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.

Looking at history, it is clear to see that a pattern of financial decline has struck nearly every generation, harming the middle class and benefiting the executive class. In the 1930’s, the infamous “Great Depression” swept the world as the worst economic disaster in history, leaving millions unemployed and homeless with no food and several children to feed. Beginning in the

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).

The decaying state of the American economy and the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s brought about the necessity for the United States to reconsider its attitudes and examine the long term effects of its policies concerning wide-scale socioeconomic problems that were constantly growing bigger. The Great Depression led to the creation of many new and innovative government policies and programs, along with revisions to older economic systems. However, these cost the government billions of dollars in a country that had consistently been stretching the gap between the rich and poor. This continued as the Great Depression began to change everything people had grown old knowing,