The Pros And Cons Of The Welfare Reform

People generally enjoy working and being productive members of society. The positive effects of the Welfare Reform Act is moving to eventually end poverty in America and promote economic growth. According to the 2005 report measuring welfare dependents “Poverty in 2003 remains much lower than in 1996, the year of passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The official poverty rate for 2003 was 12.5 percent, compared to 13.7 percent in 1996.” ( Gil Crouse, Susan Hauan, Julia Isaacs, Kendall Swenson and Lisa Trivits, 2005 ) States that design welfare-to-work policies that emphasized getting recipients into jobs by shifting to “work-first” welfare systems can modify program rules to allow more earned income,

Welfare is a greatly debatable topic in the United States , for more than 52.2 million Americans are currently on the welfare system. Many of them take advantage of this government benefit. The government believes that welfare helps and aids the citizens of the U.S, yet what most people do is take advantage of tax payers money. I disagree with welfare for the reason that people abuse and become dependent on the system.

President Clinton signed the new reform bill for welfare in 1996. According to Martin (2014), this bill was called the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act” (p.37) and it was said to have underlying principles about the causes of poverty. Representatives have used the term welfare queen in order to reduce pity for the poor and gain the support of the public for the welfare cuts (Martin, 2014 p.35). The changes that were made to the bill put a restriction on benefits and also had work

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.

The welfare system first came into action during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployed citizens needed federal assistance to escape the reality of severe poverty. The welfare system supplies families with services such as: food stamps, medicaid, and housing among others. The welfare system has played a vital role in the US, in controlling the amount of poverty to a certain level. Sadly, the system has been abused and taken for granted by citizens across the country. The welfare system was previously controlled by the federal government until 1996; the federal government handed over the responsibility to the states in hope of reducing welfare abuse. However, this change has not prevented folks from scamming the system. The

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 ended America’s largest cash assistance program, which was the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). It was replaced with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which emphasized work, personal responsibility, economic self-sufficiency and strong families. This was created in an effort to help minimized the use of welfare by low income mothers. As a result, these low income mothers could no longer receive cash aid until further notice,

Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) replaced AFDC, ending some Federal responsibility to welfare assistance. States operate their own programs; determine eligibility services to be provided to needy families, within Federal guidelines. The Federal government cannot regulate the conduct of states except to a few requirements, and states have a wide latitude in administering the program to "provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes; to reduce dependency by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; to prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and to encourage the formation and

As societies evolve, so do the problems they face. As America entered the 1990’s, more single women than ever were struggling to support their children. From 1970 to 1993, the number of recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children increased 91 percent (Hombs 52). Single mothers that had children as a result of a rape or wedlock could not partake welfare programs that demanded job participation because for fearing of leaving their children unattended. The Presidential Election in 1996 was largely influenced by each candidate’s plan to provide single mothers with proper benefits. Upon election, President Bill Clinton radically changed welfare by lowering the requirements for eligibility for programs such as AFDC, increasing the amount of aid a recipient could get, and allowing the recipients to keep more of the wages they had earned (Hombs 7). Unfortunately, these alterations made it easy for recipients to abuse the system by encouraging many to simply rely on welfare checks to sustain them financially. Looking back on Robert Rector’s disturbing study that one third of welfare recipients are taking illegal drugs, something must be done to hold those receiving aid accountable.

What would happen if the government made changes to the welfare system? There are approximately 110,489,000 of Americans on welfare. Many people benefit from what the system has to offer: food stamps, housing, health insurance, day care, and unemployment. Taxpayers often argue that the individuals who benefit from the system, abuse the system; however, this is not entirely true. Many of the people who receive benefits really and truly need the help. Even though some people believe welfare should be reformed, welfare should not be reformed because 40% of single mothers are poor, some elderly people do not have a support system, and college students can not afford to take extra loans.

During 1996 President Bill Clinton signed The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which is a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform that would change the world’s welfare system into one that is obligates work in exchange for limited time assistance. The law consist of durable work requirements, achievement bonus to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs, child support implementation, state maintenance of effort requirements, and supports for families willing to work rather than stay on welfare. It also provided money for child care and medical insurance. “From Clinton’s perspective, the challenge of welfare reform is simply to find the money, the mechanisms, and the generosity of spirit to make this

Welfare reform sparked a great deal of interest in the 1990’s when President Clinton called together a speech calling for dramatic changes to the welfare policy. In his speech he stated “No one who works full-time and has children at home should be poor anymore. No one who can work should

“This, by the way, is the welfare state in action: It’s a whole bunch of special interest groups screwing consumers and taxpayers, and making them think they're really benefiting” (Murray Rothbard).

The Welfare System’s Desperate Need for an Overhaul According to census.gov, 21.3 percent of people in the United States took part in the use of welfare programs each month in 2012 (Virginia Hyer, 2015). Even though the heart of the welfare system is genuine and pure, the heart of the most promising nation in the world has ultimately become too lazy to live a fulfilling life and dependent on the hard work of others to provide its needs. “The land of opportunity” has lost its passion; instead of chasing dreams and success, our nation seeks the easy way out of nearly every task especially in the workforce. Everyone wants to live a promising, financially stable life, but no one wants to work for it.

Welfare was accepted as a success and continued for almost sixty years. In the 1990’s Americans began to question the effectiveness of the government welfare system. In 1992, President Bill Clinton took office. One of his main problems to address while in office was the corrupted welfare system. After four years of brainstorming and planning, the United States Government decided upon how to eliminate the corrupted members of society from collecting government welfare.

On one hand, many people are coming off the rolls and finding jobs. But on the other hand, finding a minimum wage job is not a ticket out of poverty. The chore of putting people off welfare and into the work force can be difficult because welfare pays more than minimum wage, because there are no incentives for a person to work, and because recipients are stuck in their lifestyle (Long 9). Also, the task of decreasing recipients can be especially hard because cutting the line between who needs and who does not need welfare could possibly leave deserving people without a penny in their pocket. For example, West Virginia Women's Commission reports that in female-headed households in which the woman worked less than full-time, 46 percent of families were below the poverty level ( ). These statistics not only include women, but the children living in the household, too. Many citizens are also concerned with children who may go malnourished if their parents loose benefits. This concern is definitely justifiable. Alexandra Marks, of the Christian Science Monitor, reports that of the ten U.S. counties with the highest concentrations of children living in poverty, four are in the Appalachian Mountains. Specifically, McDowell County in West Virginia, is ranked fifth, with 60.4 percent of