What is Welfare? Welfare is a word that Webster 's dictionary defines "The state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, well-being, happiness, or prosperity (Merriam-Webster). Welfare is a program started by Franklin Delano Roosevelt after the Great Depression, or more accurately in the year nineteen thirty five. The Welfare program was established to help families who couldn 't reach ends meet. They were given help from the federal government in many different forms. After the family was able to get on its feet and become financially secure they would withdraw from the Welfare program. However today people find it much easier to stay on Welfare and collect money from the government instead of finding a good paying job. It can also be seen from their point of view that the current job market is in most simple terms awful yet they should not be discouraged from finding a job. People are able to apply for the Welfare system with little or no background check and also it is simple to lie on the test to get more aid than is truly required. The Welfare system has been experiencing an increased frequency of abuse over the last ten years; as a result many states are considering testing people on the Welfare program for drugs. This is due to the fact that many people who have a history of drug abuse use the Welfare program to get money for their malicious hobby. Over twenty states including Florida, Alabama, Arizona, and North Carolina have all proposed or passed drug
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
Welfare has been an arguable topic throughout United States history (“Brief”). Some people agree with it and others do not like it at all. Welfare did not exist until the 1930s during The Great Depression (“Brief”). With millions of people unemployed, Franklin D. Roosevelt developed the welfare system to help these people during the Great Depression (“Brief”). After the Great Depression was over,, the government came up with new programs to help assist the welfare program and help more people in poverty (“Brief”). Some of those programs were Medicaid, public housing, food stamps, and Supplemental Security programs (“Brief”). Theses programs helped and hurt the country at the same time (“Brief”). By having these programs, many people would not look for jobs because they knew they were better off living on welfare (“Brief”).
America spends an annual amount of 131.9 billion dollars on welfare alone (Department of Commerce). So many facts about welfare are overwhelming, such that over 12,800,000 Americans are on the welfare system. The entire social welfare system is in desperate need of a complete reform. In order for a proper reform to ensue, the people of America must combine efforts with the U.S. government to revitalize the current welfare system. This reform would involve answering two important questions. First, how has today’s welfare system strayed from its original state and secondly, how is the system abused by welfare holders in today’s economy?
Welfare started as a temporary response to the economic crash in the 1930s. Its primary goal was to provide cushioning to the families who lost the ability to be self-sufficient during the Great Depression. Yet, as America slowly rose back to becoming prosperous and wealthy, a significant chunk of America's population stayed below in the transitioning social system. The welfare system started to become counterproductive to the government so that, in the 1990s, Clinton hastily came up with legislation to end welfare, more famously known as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. This road that Clinton led ended in a downfall as more people than ever before are now dependent on the federal government for food, housing, and income. Our current welfare reform may need another reform before welfare can truly end.
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
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 U.S. Congress kicked off welfare reform nationwide last October with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, heralding a new era in which welfare recipients are required to look for work as a condition of benefits." http://www.detnews.com/1997/newsx/welfare/rules/rules.htm. Originally, the welfare system was created to help poor men, women, and children who are in need of financial and medical assistance. Over the years, welfare has become a way of life for its recipients and has created a culture of dependency. Currently, the government is in the process of reforming the welfare system. The welfare reform system’s objective was to get people off the welfare system and onto the
The article "Flat Broke with Children" Sharon Hays gave a lot of insight about what people think of welfare. She took the opinions of people using welfare and also the people not using welfare. Welfare has helped many in the united states. Most that are on welfare think of it as a security blanket. Times do get rough and life does happen.
When most people think of the average welfare recipient they most likely imagine someone who is a slacker; unambitious and one who is not a hard worker, someone who lazes around waiting until their welfare check comes in so that they can spend it all on whatever frivolous thing they want, and wait until the next check arrives. Sometimes people think of a mother and her children in a poor neighborhood, who wants more money to spend on expensive clothes and electronics, so she gets her welfare checks and buys the expensive yet unnecessary items without using the money to get out of a bad financial situation, contented to live this way without working towards anything better. Nobody would be in support of a system that gives undeserving people their own tax money. However, that is not what welfare looks like. Welfare looks like overworked parents who are doing the best they can, but still don’t have enough to put a meal on the table. Welfare looks like people afraid to lose their homes and willing to do almost anything to just keep living. Welfare looks like the mentally disabled, who despite trying their hardest, need more help. This is what welfare looks like; people in need who strive to live a better life. Welfare helps families in need not only by giving them money but by aiding them with every aspect of their lives such as food, shelter, and more to improve the quality of their life.
Welfare is a system of assistance that needs certain procedures put into place that will be beneficial to those people that use the program. Drug testing users of the welfare program can be seen as a violation of a person’s rights, can be costly and cause a burden on a family that uses the system mostly involving children, but some people feel is necessary to ensure that the government’s money is being used productively.
The welfare system is a program that has provided assistance to unfortunate or disabled individuals and families. It provides things such as healthcare, food stamps, unemployment, housing assistance and child care assistance. People believe that it should be reserved for emergency situation, because of drug addicts “playing” the system. According to one woman, named Renee, who was a recipient of the welfare program believes drug testing should be mandatory. I remember having no heat or electricity and being so hungry it was painful. My siblings and I would fight for food. Her mom would trade her food stamps for various things like cash, cigarettes, and an occasional joint (Renee 190). Renee’s mother is just one prime example of how
Welfare was put into place after the Great Depression struck in 1929, and many American people were left jobless and without any means of support for themselves and their families. Welfare was meant to be a temporary fix to get people back of their feet, but it ended up being a permeant fixture in our current government. People now want to introduce drug testing for welfare because of the stereotype that now follows people on assistance. For example one of the stereotypes is that they are just lazy. So people have gotten these stereotypes because generations are on them generation to generation.
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.
Throughout history, there have always been people willing to work for what they want, and those who expect things to be handed to them as if it was a natural-born right. While the welfare system does positively impact some families in need, many people take advantage of it. With this being a well known fact, the government still continues to use ten percent of the federal budget on welfare (“Budget” 1).
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