Essay about The Poor Law Amendment Act and Tackling Poverty

The Europeans between the 1450’s and 1700’s held many negative attitudes towards the poor themselves and the idlers who they believed were a menace to society. Also during this time period the Europeans had many responses like in England where they put them in poorhouses or tried to heal them or in others places where they tried to give them alms.

This is considered unworthy poor in modern times. The general public is influenced against the poor and says they are poor because they are lazy or helpless (Martin, 2014, p.35). It seems like view on this matter haven’t changed in the last 100 years (Martin, 2014, p. 36). The Christian Right and The Tea Party movement did impact views of the development of the welfare reform because they added punishing measures that are made for guiding the actions of someone receiving benefits. The worthy poor are still considered disabled or older people Martin, 2014 p.

Worthy poor are the people who have worked, but no longer can because they are “aged or disabled”, the people who “can work if they want to, or can support their families if they work hard enough” (Day & Schiele, 2013, p. 10). Unworthy poor is anyone else who has never worked and will not work. “It is assumed that these people are poor because of some kind of willfulness, laziness, or refusal to be productive and support themselves” (Longmore, 1997).

Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.

Between 1450 and 1700, attitudes toward the European poor changed dynamically, roughly following a three-part cycle. In the late 1400's, the poor were regarded with sympathy and compassion; generous aid from both public and religious institutions was common. By the 16th Century, however, the poor were treated with suspicion and harsh measures, to ensure that they were not becoming lazy, using welfare as a substitute for labor. Beginning in the 17th Century, the attitudes toward the poor again shifted, returning to more sympathetic views and responses, though many members of the upper-class still retained the negative outlook on the destitute of the 16th Century.

Poverty has been a big issue over the past century or so and continues to be a problem to this day in the United States. Due to the Civil War, rural areas and industrial areas were affected by poverty. The poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877 was different from the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939. Even though both situations were dealing with a form of poverty, both were two completely different situations. There were several major events that happened that caused poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877. Although there were various events leading up to the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939, poverty in the year of 1877 was just as bad, if not worse, as in the year of 1939.

Over the last century health and social care has changed and developed immensely with the implementation of the NHS and becoming a welfare state. Prior to this health care was only available to a minority of people, those who could afford it. In 1815 the old poor law was passed, it stated that each parish must look after its own poor and those who could not work were provided enough money to help them survive. By 1830 the poor law cost around £7 million, which came from taxing the middle and upper class, causing a sense of resentment towards lower class, unemployed people. In 1834 the new poor law was passed, its aim was to reduce the cost of looking after the poor. Workhouses helped with this, they provided clothes, food and healthcare in return for manual labour. Despite

This "discovery" or exposure of poverty made some people nervous. This brought about thoughts of race and class status, gender, and citizenship to name a few. This new emerging of a "poor class" created fear in people that the patriarchal society would fall. For American's the incline of the urban poor meant the decline of their society, which is what ultimately made the 'old world' undesirable. The idea of a poor class was the complete opposite of what this "new world" what supposed to be like. Nicknamed milk and honey, this was supposed to be the land of opportunity and wealth, however it wasn't turning out as planned.

People in authority tend to disregard those who and that which does not benefit them, since the poor did not seem to benefit anybody, people in authority found them useless. For instance, Emperor Charles V wrote an imperial decree for the Netherlands in 1531, where he stated that alms should not be given freely to the Europeans living in poverty, in doing so not only does he believe they will fall into idleness but he thinks they will take advantage of this and live their lives based off of alms, and that it will soon lead to all evils (document 2). He states that “beggars and their children will abandon their trade or occupation for a wicked and contemptible life… above all those who are poor and sick, and other indigents unable to earn

The Poor Law act 1601 was introduced and classified the poor into three groups, setting policies for each, the impotent poor, able bodied poor and persistent idler. It viewed poverty as the fault of the person, not their situation. Following industrialisation and a decrease in agricultural jobs, workers moved to factories working for low pay and in appalling conditions, but those needing employment outweighed the availability of such.

The issue of poverty in the United States seems to lie on the grounds of race education and family structure. As expected I found that educational levels paralleled poverty levels. Unexpected , research was found to prove that race did in fact play a substantial role in poverty. Family structure along with other influential factors either locked an individual into poverty or provided a means for escape from the continuing cycle. Other factors contributing to poverty was the location of homes or neighborhoods and the accessibility to better paying jobs.

For centuries, nations, cities, and individual families have dealt with the problem of poverty; how to remedy current situations and how to prevent future ones. For most of history, there have been no government controlled poverty assistance programs. The poor simply relied on the goodness of their families or, if they did not have a family, on the generosity of the public at large. In the United States, this situation changed in 1935 with the passage of the Social Security Act. The Social Security Act has seen many successes, but it also faces many critiques of its structure and function. In the past, most governments did little to actively aid their poor population. This duty was

Prior to the Poor Law Amendment Act there was the Elizabethan Poor Law 1601 which was more generous towards the poor. It was becoming impossible for the government to sustain this law due to the growing costs. Statistics show that in 1802 the expenditure on poor relief was costing the government £4,078,000, this figure continued to

The Poor Law was introduced because it was too much money to pay to look after the poor, so in hopes to take the poor off the streets and to stop money going to the poor the government introduced the law in 1834. The law was also put in place to embolden the poor to get back into work and support themselves, There was a law before 1834 called the "Old Poor Law" this was found to be insufficient because there was nothing in place to help the poor because even though they set up workhouses for the poor they didn't offer accommodation for the poor. There was an act passed in 1795 called "The Speenhamland System" which allowed employers to pay their workers exceptionally low wages during these years the middle and the upper classes were getting more angry because they were the ones paying for the poor who would avoid not going to or do any work.

There are scarcely any public to advocate for new laws to help the deprived and there are virtually none to compel the government along with the legislature to amend the laws to protect the weak and the poor. Even after so many years of independence, no sincere efforts have been made