Welfare Stereotypes

The most pressing problem surrounding social insurance in the United States today is a faulty perception of who deserves to receive assistance from these programs – forwardly referred to simply as deservedness. The idea that two, equally in-need people can have different levels of deservedness creates inequity within social insurance systems.

Welfare has been a very touchy and controversial subject to research. A lot of people believe that we should have it and a lot of people believe that we shouldn’t. Some people believe that the welfare should be limited. On the other hand, people think

The characters in The Help were kind of believable,but their roles in the story were very cliché and stereotypical. The characters were basically walking story stereotypes. There’s Minny, the sassy character that makes the plot interesting. Next, there’s Aibileen,silent and submissive character. There’s Hilly, the villian, and finally there’s Skeeter, the sympathetic white savior. Ironically, Mrs. Celia is the only character that adds a bit of complexity, and even she carries the dumb white blonde cliché stereotype on her shoulders.

Kathryn Stockett's The Help is a novel set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi and follows the lives of two black maids, Minny and Aibileen, and a privileged young white woman, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan. Together these three women set out to compile a book explaining how it is to work as a black maid in Jackson. While some critics argue The Help perpetuates black stereotypes and confines black women into "Mammy" roles, the novel actually promotes discussion of racial issues faced in the 1960 by black maids in a realistic manner without confining black women to a racist role.

The social welfare system in the United States can be a controversial topic especially now with the new presidential elect. For this paper I was assigned to look into two different peoples perceptions and attitudes on the social welfare system. I looked into how they perceived the system and whom they believed benefits from this system. Throughout this paper the identities of the two people I interviewed will not be revealed. I will simply refer to them in pronouns. My goal during this interview was not to educate my two interviewees so some of the information contained in this paper may not be accurate. Throughout this paper the two interviewees opinions will be stated and their opinions will then be compared and discussed. Although the whole population of the United States is experiencing the same welfare system each individual perceives and has different beliefs about the system.

Hays goes on to say that “As anyone who has ever spent time in a welfare office knows, it is a world of women, children, and diversity.” Black and Hispanic welfare recipients make up 38% and 24.5% respectively of all welfare recipients, while those populations comprise 12.3% and 17% respectively

The welfare system has been controversial throughout U.S. history. It is constantly under attack and is often the chosen topic of political debates. In 2015, 35.4% of Americans were on welfare (Boyd). Welfare is a government ran program, where the government gives benefits to people who cannot afford to take care of themselves or their family (“Brief”). The benefits that the government gives to the people are money and the necessities they need to live a normal life (“Welfare” 825). The welfare system is an interesting topic and has many layers. Although it is necessary, at the same time it is frustrating for many politicians and U.S. citizens. Numerous people abuse the welfare system everyday. People have found many ways to take

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:

Resulting in the others stereotyping welfare recipients as lazy and drug involved individuals, which there has been NO evidence supporting either of those statements(Pyke). For example, Tennessee recently concluded a drug screening on individuals who applied for welfare. The results revealed that less than one half of one percent of individuals failed the drug test. In other words, only 37 out of 16,000 people tested positive for drugs in their system (Pyke). Now given that not every state requires a drug screening, people slip through the cracks, again portraying welfare as a bad thing. With such a bad rep, a constant question is brought up to the surface; “Should welfare recipients be required to work(Pyke)?”

One reform argument is centered on the ?burden? for taxpayers to support people who are not trying to help themselves. Gilens reported, ?The economic self-interest explanation of welfare reform is widely assumed to be true, and debates over public policy often remain on the assumption that the middle class resent paying for programs that benefit only the poor? (Gilens, p. 2, 1996). Reform efforts often focus on general stereotypes of welfare recipients not wanting to work and preferring to take advantage of taxpayer money. Conservatives and liberals refer to ?welfare spending? as excessive and unnecessary. However, prior to the popularity of welfare reform, the U.S. Bureau of Census reported actual money spent on AFDC was only 7% of the $613 billion spend on social welfare which included health care, veterans? programs, education, housing, and pubic aid (tables 579, 583, 1993). With government statistics contradicting claims of excessive spending, there is

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).

There are many different types of jobs in the world; some of which people feel are better than others. Factors like the amount of money and amount of education affect the stereotypical perception about certain jobs. There are two different types of work, blue-collar and white-collar. Blue-collar jobs are seen as the “working class”. The “Working class” refers to low-wage workers that are void of a college education, who struggle to get by economically. It is also perceived that the “Working class” is lazy, unproductive failures who have limited upward mobility, or relics of earlier era of industrialization. It’s important that people realize the amount of skill level it takes to do different types of jobs, and although pay may not reflect the effort or the soft and technical skills needed, or physicality that is respective for those jobs; these jobs should be viewed respectfully. Jobs like cashiers and waitressing have a bad reputation, but they take a certain skill level that people have to develop just like any other white-collar job. People skills, public speaking, ability to sell items on the menu, multi-tasking, and so much more are necessary to be a success in this type of career choice or job. Matthew Crawford talks about this in his book, along with Mike Rose, on how there is a lack of appreciation and respect for the skill set it takes to do blue collar jobs, and how the stereotypically stigma couldn’t be further than the

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.

For instance, Hay points out that most people on welfare are thought to lack the motivation to work (Hays, 35). When actually majority of the mothers that go on welfare usually do have a history of having one or more jobs, but they just run into hard times when they are unable to support their kids and need assistance. It’s the strike policies that are put into place like having to attend every schedule meeting with your welfare employment worker, having to volunteer for free if one can’t find a job in a certain amount of time that leads to the thinking if they haven’t found a job then they aren’t trying(Hays, 40). Adair mentions in her article that in school they were laughed at for being poor, and that only the poor children were checked for lice in schools (Adair, 236). To laugh at and judge people for being poor sounds curl in itself, but if everyone thinks that they are poor because the fact that their parent are too lazy to get a job and support their children a false image starts to be created in one’s mind justifying the fact that it’s ok to look down on the poor because they brought it on