Essay on Welfare Reform System: Building American Economy Back Up

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,

There are 109,631,000 Americans on welfare, and only 105,862,000 full time working Americans. The fact that the amount of people on welfare outnumbers those who work, shows how our country is deteriorating. Some individuals on welfare take advantage of the system and exchange the things given to them, such as food stamps, for drugs or alcohol. I think anyone who does that should be taken off of welfare. In order to prevent that from happening in the future, I believe a system should be made. The system would determine whether an individual is deserving of government assistance or not. In order to be on welfare, there would be a drug test that has to be passed to even be considered. If passed, there would be quarterly drug tests that have to be passed in order to continue to get help from the government. There should also be a standard set that determines if the severity of the person’s disability is worthy of governmental assistance. If they meet all the criteria and pass their quarterly drug tests, then they deserve to be on welfare. Those who do not meet the criteria and are qualified to work, should get a job in order to support themselves and their

A great number of those who reside in New York find the current U.S welfare reform to be very exhausting, humiliating as well as fraught. According to New Yorkers, this welfare will fail them. These simply because they are not poor enough, most of the citizens are already working (De Mause & Lewis Pp 1). The centerpiece of this welfare reform demanded that every citizen to work. There is a need that the state should ensure that almost half of the citizens get public assistance from the government. The beneficiaries should be working for at least thirty hours a week since working for more hours is one of the necessary in welfare reform (Eaton 7)

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.

Welfare, enacted by one of the greatest presidents of the United States’s existence, Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, is an effective and useful means to assist American families in need. Throughout history, welfare has proven to help people get back on their feet and into society. Despite the system’s many useful benefits, like most attributes in this world, welfare has kinks in the system. In fact, welfare has yet to be perfected, even though it was established in the year of 1935 and is still in use today. The system may never be perfected, but it can be improved. There are many different thoughts and ideas pertaining to how welfare should change. Some believe it should be eliminated entirely. In doing so, many people all across the nation would be harmed in financial and mental manners. How can welfare be reformed? Is it even possible? The answer is absolutely. It must be reformed, and many would agree on the matter. It is, however, a sensitive and controversial topic to most. Political parties tend to take interest in the discussion of welfare reform, as well. The typical, left-wing Democrat wishes to give more to welfare users, while the standard right-wing Republican would like to decrease what is given to Americans. If everything has its imperfections, why should welfare be reformed? Why not leave it the way it is and let the government figure out the fine print? There are those that take this sort of stance on welfare reform, and there are some that believe differently.

The greatest impetus, however, for the political movement away from the entitlement credo was the perceived wide-spread abuse of the welfare system. The “Welfare Cadillac and Mink Coat” motifs were used so often that they became part of the pantheon of “Urban Legends”. Faced with public outcries and indignation, the Federal Government completely overhauled the welfare system in 1996. However, even with the 1996 overhaul, the welfare system is often perceived as being abused. The questions become:

Maybe by providing stricter guidelines, such as job search requirements, along with proof of the job search, welfare would not be as attractive and recipients will be more likely to get a job. Newt Gringrich, a Former speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote an essay titled “Renewing America” “The welfare system has sapped the spirit of the poor and made it harder to climb the first rung of the economic ladder.” (usnews.com). Sucha system has placed an unfair burden on the hard workers who are forced to pay for these programs. Gringrich states, “Why should taxpayers be forced to take fiscal responsibility for those who do not take responsibility for themselves? He continues to say “As individuals,we are responsible for our own actions and their consequences.” If people do notcare about their own well being then why should I be forced to care? As Gringrich sees it, “If society is responsible for everything, then no one is personally responsible for anything. With that said, without responsibility, are we truly free? Welfare should be used for the right purposes; to help those who are truly in need get on their feet and become successful. But because of the excessive misuse, welfare has now developed a stigma, and should be reformed to its original notion, and that is for its help and not

Over the past several years, Welfare reform has been a hot topic in politics in the United States. A lot of research has been done on the effectiveness of welfare and most research states that welfare is hindering rather than helping people get out of poverty. When talking about the role played by anti-poverty programs in America, David T. Ellwood and Lawrence H.

looking for work should not be receiving welfare checks. Critics cite the classic example of

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.

The history of welfare reform reveals that the question of personal responsibility versus assistance to those in need has been a constant in the debate over welfare. In the 1950s and 1960s, welfare reform was limited to various states' attempts to impose residency requirements on welfare applicants and remove illegitimate children from the welfare rolls. During the 1970s advocates of welfare reform promoted the theory of

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).