The United States Government has pumped more than $3.5 trillion U.S. taxpayer dollars into welfare but, ironically, the poverty rate is higher than when they started (Tanner, Welfare Reform). This outrageous amount of money proves that welfare will lead United States into debt. The original intent of current welfare benefits has failed; therefore the national welfare system must be reformed. To fully understand how to reform the welfare system Americans must know what the history of welfare is, illegitimate births’ obvious connection to crime and welfare, how welfare has failed to keep the poverty rate down, the great problem of dependency, and finally what reforms must be made. Welfare reforms will greatly help this Nation become …show more content…
But being a “charitable” nation the United States has trouble speaking out against social welfare, in case the United States look like they are uncaring for the poor. But there are many reasons why the citizens can criticize social welfare, and at the same time still uphold and emphasize the United States caring spirits toward the unfortunate. But before the nation can fix social welfare we must look at what is wrong with it (Gentry).
Welfare is a massive fault in the United States Government system. But it can be fixed through careful examination and diagnosis. The worst kind of parenting for the children in being born out of wedlock, but forty percent of births in 2012 alone were out-of-wedlock, and over seventy percent for African Americans (Clegg). The reason for all these illegitimate births is welfare. It reassures the single mothers that they will be able to support themselves. Micheal Tanner of Cato Institute reports “…the evidence of a link between the availability of welfare and out-of-wedlock births is overwhelming. There have been 13 major studies of the relationship between the availability of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock birth. Of these, 11 found a statistically significant correlation.”(Tanner, Welfare Reform).
Also welfare helps boost the crime rate to uncomfortable levels through single parents. Single parent children are much more likely to commit crime and, are one-third more probable to exhibit anti-social behavior. Likewise more than
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
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?
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 reform is viewed by many as an attack on poor, single mothers. According to Rebecca Blank, “single-mother families are the largest (and fastest-growing) family type.” They also make up nearly all of the families who receive welfare (only 7% of welfare recipients live in two-parent households and even fewer welfare households are headed by men, according to Hays.) Hays also notes in the book that these single mothers are frequently derided as lazy, promiscuous, and are accused of abusing the welfare system for their ill-gotten gains (which in most cases total the princely sum of less than $500 per month.)
The welfare systems are based on the principle of public responsibility on equitable wealth distribution and equality of opportunities to citizens who are unable to afford minimal levels of quality and good life, through provision of universal education programs, health care and subsidised housing. In most of the states, welfare systems are not used in the right manner they are intended to. Although the systems are meant to reduce the poverty level and at least assists individuals to get decent jobs, many recipients develops news ways every year to prolong their dependency in the system. Statistics show that women easily abuse the welfare system by simply having more children each year since this means that more money will come in their mails. Most of the recipients on welfare are able to work
Welfare should not be reformed because it helps single parents. 40 percent of single mothers are poor, 12 million single parents-mother-headed families are poor (Freeman). Welfare can help keep these single parent families stay stable to be an effective families. 12 million single parents mothers headed families can be reduced to less underachieving families with the assistants of welfare. Also with single parents they never had an significant other.
The welfare state could be viewed as an assistant to help lower-income to middle-income families. However, even though the welfare state supplies protection against poverty, and other contingencies, it holds society’s construction as a whole in aiding individuals with elements like the in-kind goods and services, which provide health care, food stamps, and education. Until now, lower class citizens in poverty have habitually been a social problem for our conflicted nation for many decades.
The welfare system has helped families from around the 1930’s. Social welfare in the United States consists of groups of variety programs. The programs are designed to assist people who are in need of assistance. The goal of the welfare program is to reduce poverty. Poverty undermines the economy by disturbing the normal growth of human capital. Including education, health and professional experience. All the welfare programs require different means of eligibility. There are programs that help with food, housing, Pell Grants, child care, and health care. In this paper I will give a brief review of the most popular programs. I will also tell the requirements to receive benefits. Then I will include a government review of fraud within the
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).
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
During the 1960’s when I was growing up, children always came after marriage. If a woman had a baby out-of-wedlock, her family would frequently be disgraced. More often then not she would marry the baby’s father, but somewhere between then and now, things changed. Today, having a baby out-of-wedlock has become very acceptable. As a matter of fact, being unemployed, unmarried, or poor is no longer a concern. That is to say, expectant mothers can depend on government support if they are income eligible. The first problem associated with these programs is that for a large number of these women and their families’ welfare has turned into a long-term dependency. The second dilemma is that their welfare lifestyle has created many of our nation’s
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).
Many male political figureheads have gone as far to say that government largess to poor mothers ruins character, breaks up families, weakens the economy, and bloats the budget (Abramovitz and Piven A23). Many blame the country's economic problems on the huge burden of welfare. They want reforms to cut welfare spending, but with the welfare rolls stabilizing in the 1970s, funding for the welfare program only accounts for one percent of the annual federal budget (Buchsbaum 6). The public feels it is okay to receive social security, defense contracts, or bank bailouts, but welfare is seen as the root of all evil.