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The Responsibility Of Government Welfare In The United States

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Government Responsibility

Welfare is broken and has been for a long time. Government welfare is an issue today in the United States. Welfare is supposedly given to the unemployed, the impoverished, and the physically unable. Poverty and unemployment is a problem in the U.S., because people foster dependence on welfare benefits, which increases the poverty rate, and the amount of people unemployed. The Government should help the poor, but should not help those who do not need support, and not give as many benefits as they do now. The National Welfare System was created in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. He focused on providing jobs for the large amount of unemployed people. However he supported the idea …show more content…

However, there was not a United States National Welfare system until around the 1930’s during the Great Depression. As mentioned before, president Franklin D. Roosevelt created a work relief program in his “New Deal” regime. However, it was not the government giving money to the unemployed like it is today. Back in the 1930’s, the work relief program gave money to many public works programs to provide jobs during the depression. According to the Constitutional Rights Foundation, “The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called "unemployables"; widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled” (Costly). Even when a national welfare system was created, it was not meant to provide money to those who did not have jobs. The government’s money was given to foundations to provide jobs for citizens, insisting that in order to receive help, they must have a job, contrary to what welfare is like today in the …show more content…

Now known as Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, food stamps are essentially “vouchers used by the government to those on low income, exchangeable for food.” These are benefits given every month, issued on a plastic card to be used like a debit card in convenience stores, grocery stores, and even at some farmer’s markets. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition board, there are about 46.5 million people receiving food stamps in the United States. Some states require the food stamp recipient to be employed or trying to find work before they can receive those food stamps. According to a “Fox and Friends” segment on Fox News, “Indiana will be reinstating rules that will require at least 20 hours of work a week to receive certain benefits such as food stamps” (NorthShore TP). This means that in Indiana, people below the poverty line will have to have worked at least 20 hours that week to receive their government issued benefits, to give an incentive to find a job instead of just taking the handouts with no effort to find work and get off welfare, or get to a point where they do not need food stamps any longer. However, according to Fox News Insider, “more than forty states still do not require welfare recipients to work” (Fox News Insider). This means that these people do not have an incentive to find work to provide for themselves, but just apply for the

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