The Modern Welfare State Essay

Supposedly, established to thwart the experience of dire poverty for most Americans upon retirement, in reality it is an income transfer program whereby the comparatively rich subsidize the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, and the disabled. However, Conservatives do support social welfare services to the most susceptible members of American society. “But conservatives believe that the most effective way to provide assistance is at the level of the individual states, in conjunction with private, for-profit, market-driven and not-for profit non-governmental organizations, and through faith-based social service programs.” ("Studentnews," 2006) Conservatives believe that welfare programs should not be funded solely based on ‘need,’ but the costs and effectiveness should be taken into effect.

The idea of the welfare state can mean something different in each and every country. There is an ideal model of the welfare state which is where society accepts the responsibility for things such as the ground work and the provision of wide ranging and

The welfare system has been controversial throughout U.S. history. It is constantly under attack and is often the chosen topic of political debates. In 2015, 35.4% of Americans were on welfare (Boyd). Welfare is a government ran program, where the government gives benefits to people who cannot afford to take care of themselves or their family (“Brief”). The benefits that the government gives to the people are money and the necessities they need to live a normal life (“Welfare” 825). The welfare system is an interesting topic and has many layers. Although it is necessary, at the same time it is frustrating for many politicians and U.S. citizens. Numerous people abuse the welfare system everyday. People have found many ways to take

The welfare state makes capitalism and democracy possible by allowing a partial free market since regulations are put into place. By doing this, it aims to mobilize the working class. For instance, labor market policies protect the working class through “passive measures such as unemployment insurance that help soften the blows to individuals caused by market dislocations, [and] active measures such as worker training”(Schulze-Cleven, pg.80). Through these measures the working class is still being helped, but at the expense of others, through taxation. For example, unemployment insurance “is administered by states according to federal and state guidelines, and it is financed through a complex mix of federal and state payroll taxes”(Schulze-Cleven, pg.82). Through taxation the state gains power, but the population benefits from it.

Thousands of people are signed up to receive welfare in America, this program is designed to aid poor and needy families. However, it has become some people’s way of earning an income. Several argue against and say that welfare is not destroying our country and creating a dependent people who have learned to abuse certain privileges that come with living in this nation.

The social welfare system in the United States can be a controversial topic especially now with the new presidential elect. For this paper I was assigned to look into two different peoples perceptions and attitudes on the social welfare system. I looked into how they perceived the system and whom they believed benefits from this system. Throughout this paper the identities of the two people I interviewed will not be revealed. I will simply refer to them in pronouns. My goal during this interview was not to educate my two interviewees so some of the information contained in this paper may not be accurate. Throughout this paper the two interviewees opinions will be stated and their opinions will then be compared and discussed. Although the whole population of the United States is experiencing the same welfare system each individual perceives and has different beliefs about the system.

In America today, just over ten million people are on unemployment insurance, one hundred and ten million people are on welfare, and the total government spending annually is around one hundred and thirty billion dollars (Welfare Statistics). The welfare state is a political system based on the proposition that the government has the individual responsibility to ensure that the minimum standard of living is met for all citizens. Specifically, in the matters of health care, public education, employment, and social security, the welfare state assumes all responsibility. According to John Rawls, “In a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice“(Rawls). In the 1840s, Otto Von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, was the father of the modern welfare state. He built the program to win over the support of the working middle class in Germany and ultimately reduce the outflow of immigrants to the U.S., where welfare did not exist (Welfare State). In the United States, not all companies provided workers with benefits, thus the workers appealed to the government, giving rise to the first form of welfare capitalism.

In conclusion the Welfare State was created on the principle that the state accepted a responsibility to protect and promote the welfare of all citizens. It must be noted that the system was designed to provide a national minimum, not reduce inequalities. I have looked in detail at all aspects to combat the “five giants “and the popular support when the Beveridge report was introduced. I have also looked at flaws in the system, however the cornerstone of the Beveridgian welfare system, was left almost untouched until the 1980’s.

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.

This desire for the welfare state was rooted in many causes. To fully understand these cause we have to start out not at the 1941 beginnings of the large scale welfare state but to 1598.

The history of welfare reform reveals that the question of personal responsibility versus assistance to those in need has been a constant in the debate over welfare. In the 1950s and 1960s, welfare reform was limited to various states' attempts to impose residency requirements on welfare applicants and remove illegitimate children from the welfare rolls. During the 1970s advocates of welfare reform promoted the theory of

By definition, the welfare state is a means of giving assistance to those who do not produce an arbitrary amount of recorded capital for themselves. There is absolutely no encouragement to work, no obligation for productivity. Rather, the Heritage Foundation reported that only two of 80 tested welfare programs in America had

The aim of this essay is to discuss and compare the British Welfare system with Germany and Sweden’s welfare systems. A welfare system is the structure of welfare provisions and services that provide a specific social need, but it is not only provided or organised solely by the government (Blakemore, 2001). It is a view that is rooted in individual exchanges between five organisations (State/Government, Market/Private Sector, Family/Kin networks, Local Communities and Civil Society). It reflects the history and cultures of different countries around the world (Haralambos, 2012). It is these providers that assume principal

This essay will consider whether the welfare state has eliminated poverty. It will examine what poverty is and how the definition varies from societies. The essay will look at the aims of the welfare state from conception and how it has changed to present times. The welfare state being analysed is the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It will discuss the nature of the social democratic welfare state and liberal criticisms of the problems this type of state brings. The recent changes to the welfare state will be reviewed and what the consequences of the changes may be. It will then look at recent statistics to determine whether the welfare state has eradicated poverty.

Social justice is a long debated subject that continues to prove controversial and divisive all over the world. Opinions on what constitutes social justice vary on a continuum from more conservative opinions which note individual responsibility to a more liberal stance which promotes a moral responsibility to support social equality (Mapp, 2008). Despite the varying opinions of what establishes social justice, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) serves as the first step in promoting social justice by outlining the basic rights that should be afforded to humanity (United Nations, n.d.). More specifically, Article 22 of the UDHR states that all people should have access to social security protection that works to provide essential needs, provisions for preserving dignity, and freedom to pursue personal interest (United Nations, n.d.). In spite of the established declaration, social justice remains unavailable for too many people. Worldwide, the lack of social protection leads to 1.4 billion people struggling to meet their essential needs due to lack of access to resources which promote a decent standard of living. Another 100 million fall into poverty due to unforeseen complications (GIPSPSI, 2011). Therefore, there is a crucial need to recognize social protection as a human right in order to guarantee equal access to basic services and equal opportunity to all of humankind.