FREE ESSAY ON WELFARE REFORM

WELFARE REFORM

WELFARE REFORM
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, there was a crisis among American families. The crash
of the Stock Market in 1929 led into the era, which would be remembered as the Great
Depression. The stock market crash left many American people with nothing. With no money,
no homes, and no jobs, many American families became poor and homeless. With the
presidential election in 1932, of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the introduction of the "New
Deal," the American people were acquainted with many new economic and social welfare
programs. Up until this time, welfare was not a big issue, but with so many poor people
it was important to find a way to help the economy. The welfare programs did help many
people in the height of the depression, but the question today is, the welfare benefit
levels too charitable? The answer is yes. Welfare benefit levels are so generous, that
they entice people into becoming dependent upon the system.
Up until the Great Depression, welfare was not really an issue. For the most part every
one dealt with their problems on their own. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it
left many people to fend for themselves. Many families in America got wrapped up in the
stock market, after all the returns were very plentiful. Several people had their life
savings in the stock market, and others went to loan sharks and took out loans for large
sums of money, to try and earn back money that 
they had already lost. When the stock market crashed, it left all of the people with
investments in stock, as well as banks, with nothing. Many people committed suicide, or
went crazy. Some of the richest people became poor. But to make matters worse, many
people were fired or laid off their jobs. This was happening left and right; their
employer had either lost too much money in the crash of the stock market. Or when the
stock market crashed and took everyone's money, no one could afford the goods or services
that they were offering and they were not making enough money to pay their employees. So
they were left with no choice, with little to no cash flowing in they could not afford to
keep many people on their pay roll.
The Great Depression, which began in 1929, had a tremendous impact on nearly all aspects
of American life. Its effects on the American political perspective was considerable
indeed. The landmark election of 1932 brought Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency.
Also, that election marked an essential shift in the public's attitude toward the proper
place of government in the nation's social, and economic life (Carlson-Thies 13).
"Franklin Roosevelt and the democrats engineered their victory in 1932 with a new
electoral base. It was built largely of southerners, small farmers, organized labor, and
big-city political organizations. Roosevelt's revolutionary economic and social welfare
programs, which formed the heart of the New Deal of the 1930s, further strengthened that
coalition; and it soon brought increasing support from African Americans and other
minorities to the Democrats" (Carlson-Thies 13). 
With the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt came many strong attributions towards the
economic status and the very well being of the American people. Roosevelt's biggest push
was his "New Deal," which was a program that he and his fellow Democrats had comprised.
The New Deal was supposed to help the American people that were jobless, and living on
the streets, by giving them a job and bringing them in off the streets. It was a program
devised to help get people on their feet. It was a series of programs that formed a very
large program that is known as welfare. Welfare consists of many programs, there are
programs that are intended to help the elderly, and there are programs that focus most of
their attention on children. There are also programs intended to provide housing for
needy families. 
There were several federal rules and regulations that one must meet in order to receive
benefits from welfare. Once a person qualified to receive benefits, then a certain amount
of money was given to them. The amount of money that a person received was based upon how
many children they had, and the standard of living in the area in which they lived (Blank
112).
Money was not necessarily just handed out, but at the same time it was not very hard to
receive welfare benefits. The major problem with welfare was deciding who should and
should not receive benefits. "It has been said that approximately only half of all of the
people that actually needed help, ever received any" (Blank 77). The government was
providing money to people who did not actually need it, and turning down people who did
need it. What they were faced with now was coming up with a way to determine who was and
was not a worthy candidate for receiving welfare benefits.
Mostly the people that received benefits from the welfare system, were homeless people.
Homeless people that had children would receive even more money, and possible even
implemented with a home to live in. The major problem with this is that the government
was giving these things out, they were not making people pay or work for what they are
being given. Therefore, these people were becoming dependent on welfare. They were being
supplied with a home and money, what else do they need? The welfare program set out to be
a very positive thing, but with so many people taking advantage of the government, and
not making any efforts to get jobs and or get off of welfare, they were costing the
taxpayers of America a great deal of money. Along with costing the taxpayers money it
costs the government lots of money too, and for these reasons the welfare system of the
United States definitely need improvement.
Like anything else, there are going to be good things and bad things about the welfare
system. There are many positive things that come from the welfare system. Welfare is very
cost efficient as far as the amount of money spent for the services provided. "Welfare is
also cheaper than job creation, which is one reason why past reform efforts have in the
end not been approved by Congress" (Gans 115). Welfare provides people in need with
something that they under normal circumstances would not be able to acquire, and that is
money. 
Welfare does indeed provide for many individuals. It provides for the elderly, infants
and young, and the homeless. The welfare program provides for these people in several
ways. For infants and small children there are many programs available for example, AFDC
and WIC "AFDC is Aid to Families with Dependant Children, and its main purpose is to
ensure that families are capable of at all times providing a home environment for their
children" (Bane 53). WIC (Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and
Children) is a similar program, but it "makes it possible for women in need to feed their
children, and was formed to ensure mothers that their children would not go hungry"
(Wilson 150). Another program that was set up and was aimed at the well being of children
is CSA. CSA is Child Support Assurance. With this program "the main goal is to ensure
that families with absent parents receive some sort of compensation for their income
losses, in other words there are state subsidies present rather than payments from absent
parents" (Wilson 147). Most of these programs were created for the general health and
well being of the American people. In other words, they promoted the general welfare of
people in need. These programs made it possible for people to feed their children, put a
roof over their head, put clothes on their back, and provide their children with an
education. 
There are also different programs set up for the elderly and a good example of one of
those programs is the Medicaid program. This program was set up to help people of all
ages, but mainly just the elderly. "Medicaid is a program set up to provide health care
services to low-income, elderly, disabled, and some low-income families" (Lunardini 77).
Although Medicaid is indeed a welfare program, set up by the government, "it is often not
listed by the public as a welfare program" (Lunardini 83).
A few general social welfare programs, are HUD and GA. "HUD stands for Housing and Urban
Development, which stands as means for people in need to have a house" (Maybury 41). The
government either buys or builds houses for families in
need to live in. GA stands for General Assistance. " General Assistance is a catch-all
term for any cash assistance that states provide to low income individuals who are not
eligible for broader national programs" (Blank 85). As the title of this program clearly
states, General Assistance can be anything from cash and food stamps to houses.
The problem with all of these programs is that they cost so much money. The amount of
money spent on welfare is immense, and not all of the people that receive benefits from
welfare actually need it. Some people form a dependency, where once they get on welfare,
and they start receiving checks, they get lazy and they do not make any efforts to get a
job or get off welfare. So what can the government do? Can they just stop giving certain
individuals welfare benefits, or do they set out control groups to monitor people's
progress? Either way they go it costs more money (Bender 108).
There are some ways to determine whether or not the programs are working for individuals.
Once it is determined whether or not the programs are working, they can evaluate the
situation, and determine if the individual should receive further benefits from the
welfare program. But how can the government be fair to the people who need welfare, while
at the same time filter out individuals that do not. The answer to this age-old problem
is welfare reform. (Berkowitz 118)
Overtime, many Presidents have pushed for welfare reform. The major campaigning slogan of
several Presidents has been welfare reform. But with so many people and so many different
needs, it is very hard to devise one single plan that works for everyone. Welfare reform
would mean that the current welfare program would have to become more cost efficient, and
there would have to be more stringent guidelines as to the requirements of receiving
benefits. 
"Here is the deep challenge of welfare reform: how can it be both fair and compassionate?
How can it help without generating dependency? How can it, at the same time, help those
who need help, bolster the structures and habits that sustain healthy life, and also
shore up the delicate webs of social responsibility without which no forms of assistance
would exist in the first place" (Berkowitz 200)?
These are central questions of welfare and welfare reform. However, the more common
question of welfare politics is this: "why should I, working my eight-hour day (or more)
consider my self responsible to sustain someone abusing drugs, having babies without
dependable fathers, or abandoning school" (Berkowitz 200)? It is a difficult and
controversial topic, but the truth is that something must be done about the status quo of
our welfare programs.
"When the topic of welfare comes up, the dialogue often turns angry and judgmental; the
prose becomes purple. All sides draw stark images and speak in tones of moral outrage.
Debates turn ugly. And just below the surface, indeed sometimes well above the surface,
are vicious stereotypes. There is much heat and very little light" (Harris 46).
People's images of the people that are on welfare are often made ugly by their own
personal opinion of who is on welfare. When people think of the welfare system there are
many different opinions, and many different sides. Along with these many opinions and
beliefs are several stereotypes. Some people believe that the welfare system is for
minorities only and others believe that it consists of just pregnant teens and dropouts.
All of the statements are false; the welfare system is equally balanced between a wide
variety of individuals. (Gans 90)
Did the American people agree to a certain responsibility when America adopted that "new
social contract" called the New Deal? The answer is no, for "clearly the ideal of Social
Security was to help those who have been hardworking, responsible citizens, and the ideal
of the other forms of 'relief' was precisely that it was...'relief,' a temporary hand up
for folks 'down on their luck'" (Sabato 189). The vast majority of Americans still today
endorse enthusiastically this notion of social assistance. But, "increasingly, they
resist the repetition and retrenchment and deepening over time of that culture of
compliance dependency" (Sabato 189). 
Welfare is a very hot topic. It is hot all across the nation; every one has an opinion,
or a suggestion. Every one wants things to get better, and every one wants our government
programs to become cheaper, and more cost efficient. The only thing that one can do as an
American citizen is stay true to ones own word, and follow ones own advice. If everyone
would pull together and give each other a chance, Americans could really pull off
something incredible. Welfare most definitely needs reform. 
There are too many people out there milking the government for everything that it has to
offer, but the welfare program in the United States has accomplished many great things,
and made it possible for many Americans to survive. The system will get stronger, but
only time can tell. The system of help to the American people is very successful, but at
the same time it is very weak, and very much a failure. For every mistake that Americans
make they can come back with hopefully successful efforts, for they learn from their
mistakes and that is what makes this country so strong. Maybe one day, once it has been
revised and reformed, the American people will be able to call forth on the welfare
program and they will not have the same problems that they face today, but yet different
problems, and different things to strive for. They will find different goals for our
selves, and they will be able to focus our attention elsewhere. 
In 1932, during the height of the Great Depression, a man was elected President. That man
was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He set out to improve the economy and the general welfare of
the American people by introducing us to the New Deal. The New Deal was a large program,
aimed toward pulling the economy out of the slump that it was in. The program was a
success and it had people looking up, but it was too generous of a program. The
government was just handing money out to people, and in doing so people would form a
dependency. So the poor people that were receiving benefits from welfare were not
motivated in any way to take initiative and try to get a job, they would sit back and
live off of their welfare benefits. The level of welfare benefits was then and is today
far too generous, it entices people with its generosity and they become dependant upon
the system. The American people can only hope for reform, and only time will tell. 
Bibliography
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bane, Mary J. and Ellwood, David, T. Welfare Realities. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard
University Press, 1994.
Bender, David. and Leone, Bruno. Social Justice Opposing Views. San Diego, California:
Greenhaven Press Inc, 1990.
Berkowitz, Edward D. and McQuaid, Kim. Creating the Welfare State. Lawrence, Kansas:
University Press of Kansas, 1992.
Blank, Rebecca M. It Takes a Nation. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1997.
Carlson-Thies, Stanley W. and Skillen, James W. Welfare in America. Grand Rapids
Michigan: Eerdmuns Publishing Company, 1996.
Gans, Herbert J. The War Against the Poor. New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers
Inc. 1995.
Harris, Kathleen M. Teen Mothers and the Revolving Welfare Door. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1997.
Lunardini, Christine A. Social Issues in American History. Phoenix, Arizona: The Oryx
Press, 1996. 
Maybury, Richard J. Whatever Happened to Justice. Placerville, California: Bluestocking
Press, 1993.
Sabato, Larry J. and Simpson, Glenn R. Dirty Little Secrets. New York, New York: Random
House, 1996. 
Wilson, William J. The Truly disadvantaged. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago
Press, 1987.