Welfare And Health Care Reform

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 was an attempt by the government to get people to be more efficient and less reliant on the government. There was a sort of “exchange” between the government and citizens. Citizens work and in return they receive financial assistances. This is referred to as the TANF, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. It was supposed to motivate people to work, or that was the goal. Recipients were required to work at least 20 hours a week. This was actually successful in decreasing the number of Americans who were dependent on welfare systems. As diversity greatly increased, the need for welfare also increased. Welfare reform efforts were attempted because of the various changes occurring. Welfare in the United States is

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

"Welfare 's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence." Ronald Reagan said this statement on January of 1970 when the "Los Angeles Times" interviewed him (Williamson). Federal government funded welfare in the United States started in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Because of the vast numbers of people out of work and with insufficient funds to buy food for their families, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a program to give money to state governments for the purpose of making jobs so that unemployed people could work (Bill). This start of federal aid was the beginning of what we know welfare to be today. This paper will show whether or not welfare works in our society, whether or not the U.S. should reform it, and if this nation should even have welfare for those who cannot work.

The US welfare system started back in the 1930’s when the great depression was going on. In 2012 more than 30 percent of households headed by an immigrant. The people who are mainly on welfare are the people who are sick and disabled and have little income, a big family or who come from out of the country. The government provides each state with their own welfare programs called temporary assistance for needy families (TANF). There are many different types of welfare programs in the US like, heath care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing assistance. All of these types of welfare are controlled by the government and the state in some kind of way.

The U.S. reform effort suggests that the social welfare policy is most efficient at reducing poverty. “Federally funded and governed US welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression.” [1] “A main goal of these reforms is to reduce the number of individuals or families’ dependent on government assistance and to assist the recipients in their efforts to become self-sufficient.” [2] Welfare was intended as a way to help people through a rough spot and are in greater need. It is for families living in poverty who need help to create financial stability. “The U.S. welfare state arguably emphasizes incentives to keep people employed, at whatever job and wage level, more than any other country.” (Drogus and Orvis 588) Every state has their

Welfare is a subject of debate in the United States because everyone has a different point of view when it comes to the Social Security Act. On one side the rich may feel that the government takes from the rich, and gives to the poor. The poor on the other hand may believe that they are being forgotten and not helped enough by the government. Are the government financial assistance programs really working and helping people climb out of poverty or are they creating lazy people who depend on government assistance too much? Poverty has been an issue of great debate in America for centuries. Before the Social Security Act was passed, the United States government did not have a stable plan to help/aid the poor. It was the local governments’ responsibility to care for their disadvantaged. Many Americans believe only the poor receive welfare aid or benefits from the government, they are misguided, because even though welfare is a program who aids the poor it also helps most Americas in one way or another. Also, welfare helps big name corporations by giving them government funding for research he also gives them loans, grants, and tax breaks. In 2015 it was the eightieth year anniversary since President Theodore Roosevelt passed The Social Security Act law, and the problem has gotten worse not better. The purpose for this act was to help the unemployed or underemployed during the great depression. However, it extended to the poor through a variety of programs. In Addition, the

Citizen views in the United States have been ever changing. Our, American, views on welfare and what it means to have a welfare state have been changing as well. As Theda Skocpol describes in, Social Policy in the United States, the Social Security Act of 1935 was our first form of universal social policy. This victory came after unsuccessful attempts at creating a form of old age pension. There are a lot of similarities between policies, during the New Deal and Post-War area, particularly roadblocks. In a time of regulation, both the United States and Britain were creating policies in response to growing demands from those in the industrial sector. Many of these demands could be addressed through reshaping, in some cases, creating new

Welfare has been a safety net for many Americans, when the alternative for them is going without food and shelter. Over the years, the government has provided income for the unemployed, food assistance for the hungry, and health care for the poor. The federal government in the nineteenth century started to provide minimal benefits for the poor. During the twentieth century the United States federal government established a more substantial welfare system to help Americans when they most needed it. In 1996, welfare reform occurred under President Bill Clinton and it significantly changed the structure of welfare. Social Security has gone through significant change from FDR’s signing of the program into law to President George W. Bush’s

The paper provides analyzes of the most radical welfare reform for the recent eight decades, its political and administrative components; its preconditions, and its impact on the American society.

Many different programs were created, all of which were designed to provide Americans jobs, give temporary aid to the needy, and in a broad sense just get America out of the Great Depression. Welfare was implemented to provide temporary aid to the needy so that they could use such capital to get back on his/her feet and continue with a productive life (“Fix Welfare”).

.The welfare system is to aid those who have sunk onto hard times. The welfare law was introduced in 1966 and has helped many people since then. There are many misconceptions about welfare. One is that welfare is one big organization, which it is not it is a plethora of many things such as housing assistance, welfare cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security Income (SSI) for the disabled or low-income elderly. However many people believe that welfare payments are too high but that not correct, many recipients barely get enough to live on. Nearly $153 billion is spent on this program. Which seems like a lot until you divided it amongst the hundreds of thousand people on it. The average persons on welfare got $400 a month.

The major problem facing poor Women and Children after the adoption of Welfare Reform is, the lack of adequate healthcare for these families. The Women and Children facing this problem are mainly from out-of-wedlock families. It is believed that by removing such benefits it will end such problems like crime, young black men not feeling sense of accomplishment by not working and the bond of community relationships deteriorating. In trying to address this problem I have come up with two different alternative policies to try to tackle the newest welfare reform policy and adjust it in a way that will benefit families especially Women and Children as well as the tax payers of America.

1.) Welfare State is a system whereby the government undertakes to protect the health and well-being of its people, especially those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits. In this world not everybody can be rich and successful, and thus some people have to work harder earning lower income to at least have a decent life. There are a lot of welfare programs that help people that are in need provided by the government. For example, the government helps the low income students by helping them pay for tuition and books with FAFSA

Welfare is a program for unemployed or poor people in which the government helps pay for their housing, medical costs, food and more. It is government benefits that are distributed to people or families that are not financially stable. It enables them to maintain and keep a minimum or amount of well-being. There are programs that include the Women, Medicaid, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) that give help to poor families. Back in the earlier days of America, the colonies imported the British Poor Laws. They made a distinction between the people who were not able to work because of their physical health or age and the people who are able to work, but are unemployed. Welfare history continued throughout the 1800’s when attempts were made to reform how the government dealt with the poor. Some of the changes were made to try to help the poor get to work instead of continuing to need assistance financially. Social workers would visit the poor and train them in morals. A work ethic was advocated by those reformers in the 1880s and 1890s. Before the Great Depression, congress supported multiple programs to help and assist the poor. A Civil War Pension ,one of the programs, was passed in 1862. It provided aid to Civil War Veterans along with their families. Many families suffered poverty during the Great Depression and about one-fourth of the working people were left unemployed. This is when the government stepped in to help