Welfare Reform : The American People Lost Their Hope Essay

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

Can a single mother of three working full time for minimum wage afford to pay ' by herself ' for food, clothing, transportation, childcare, occupational training and medical care? Without government aid, the obvious answer is no. Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), as described by Robert Kuttner, is a government aid program designed 'to help all of the working poor rise out of poverty.' It includes tuition reimbursements, wage supplements, and above all, childcare? (Kuttner). It creates a more equal opportunity for those at a disadvantage to improve themselves and their situation. TANF, 'which limits the time families can remain on welfare, appears to be a smashing success' (Cohn). First, if eligibility were to become stricter, seeking

In 1930’s the Great Depression triggered a crises in the nation’s economic life. The Great Depression left millions of people unemployed and penniless. People consider leaving their farms behind to work in the cities factories to send money home. But as they grow into their new lifestyles the aging parent would stay behind to keep their dream of landowner ship. The seniors would be left in the hardest times of need living off the land. President Roosevelt’s New Deal was created to help jump-start the economy by providing unemployed workers with jobs and benefits packages for temporary relief. One of the many steps taken to alleviate the burden on the American people was the passing of Social Security Act on August 14, 1935 and its amendments by Congress and the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

That is equal to approximately 109,631,000 people. Not all people on Welfare abuse the advantages, most use the program the way that it was intended for, but in 2015, 10.1% of all Welfare payments were improper, meaning the recipient misuses the funds given. The 10.1% is equivalent to $71.5 billion and 11,072,731 people exploiting the system (federalsafetynet.com). To be using the money of people who work hard to earn a living, to be lazy is incomprehensible to me. Living off of other people who are working hard is not living, although the idea of not having to work and instead just be given money to spend on whatever you desire may seem enviable, it is the epitome of the “fun oriented” society. “Did the natural right to pursue happiness become somehow the right to get happiness and did that right inevitably degenerate into a right to have fun- for the simple reason that the impossibility of guaranteeing fun is less obvious than the impossibility of guaranteeing happiness?” (Can we survive the fun explosion?). There is a legitimate fear that the other millions of people not on Welfare will see how the other half living off Welfare will think that it is a viable option because they no longer have to put forth any pursuit for happiness. Their ticket to happiness is handed to them. Then our country will evolve into a crumbling mess because no one will be working to support

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.

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

Welfare is intended for families or individuals that are in need of assistance with no or little income. For those who do not know, Welfare funds come from hard working individuals that are required to pay taxes. Now we wonder, are the tax payers’ hard earned money going to the right deserving recipients? Welfare fraud is on the rise in this country. Many are taking advantage of the system taking away the help that is meant for people that truly needed help to provide for their families or people that need assistance until they can stand on their own feet. Statistics clearly show that “785,000 to 1.2 million families are illegally receiving welfare benefits. At the average rate of $11,500 per year, this means taxpayers are being

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.

When a person first hears the word welfare, they think of free money, food and lazy people. This is such a stereotyped opinion of all that the welfare system is and what it does for millions of individuals and families in the United States. To socially define welfare one could view it as a: social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need” (dictionary.com). Because there are so many different views on welfare the American government has attempted to create a welfare policy for all Americans to follow and acknowledge. But who or what defined happiness? Who makes the decision on what Americans are considered to be in need? Federal, state, and local governments have implemented guidelines to answer these very questions, but like many policies in America there is ridicule and controversy. Welfare has become an issue here in America. There are many unanswered questions from who is eligible, to how long a person or family can receive benefits. The welfare system that we have today is far from perfect and many people feel there need to be a lot of changes made to it so it is implemented to better serve a bigger variety of Americans. This is not a very easy process as there are many steps the government must take before this will occur. I think that it is the responsibility of policy actors to make changes in our current welfare system we have in

In 2010, the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government took power. The new government ‘’inherited a substantial public spending deficit and a fragile economy’’ (Tess, 2013, p. 406) and this led to the government making budget cuts to welfare provision and the public sector. Some of the changes to the welfare system when the new government took power from the Labour government included; ‘’substantial cuts to social security benefits and tax credits’’ (Tess, 2013,p find), freezing of child benefit for three years, the introduction of the bedroom tax, a welfare cap, ‘’abolition of the health in pregnancy grant’’

Many have argued and debated about a systematical program called welfare. Some perceive it as dead weight to our nation and they question whether the programs offered are helping the community. As taxpayer's, the American populous funds contribute to welfare for others. Due to the large number of people who receive government assistance, it is not that simple to monitor every individual. However, I propose that welfare should be reformed. Society is abusing the access to social welfare and to prevent the downfall sure to come, the government needs to reform the accessibility and ownership of welfare because it betrays its creation; it is creating a dependent nation, and affects taxpayers and people who truly need government assistance.

In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act which, among other things, provided for the financial, medical, and material needs of the poor (Komisar 125,128). Since then, there have many additions and reforms to the bill, none of which has served to quell the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the welfare system in the United States. The main concerns of the distribution of welfare dollars and resources can be answered by the questions ?Who gets assistance?? and ?How much do they receive??. The U.S. welfare system is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, which attempts to answer these questions through a system of minimum incomes, government-calculated poverty levels, number of children, health problems, and many other criteria. This complicated system leads to one of the critiques of the welfare system?that it is too large and inefficient. President Lyndon Johnson declared a ?War on Poverty? in 1964 designed to alleviate the burden of the poor and established the Food Stamp program the next year (Patterson 139). In 1996, a major welfare reform bill was passed that placed time limits on welfare assistance, required able participants to actively seek employment, and implemented additional services for the needy (Patterson 217).

There seems to be an increase in poverty in the United States and there are so many theories behind why this might be a problem. It seems as if Society as a whole wants to blame this social “condition” on Society itself. I believe that the problem of poverty lies within the actual individuals that are experiencing poverty. There are a few reasons why people experience poverty. They are as follows: One, the liberal welfare programs that were started in the 1960’s, two, individuals lack the characteristic of power and individuality, three, anti-social behavior and the idea that poverty passes from one generation to the next.

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.