Essay On Welfare In America

Welfare in America is not even a 100 years old, but it is still a very controversial subject. Everyone you meet can tell you a story about a people that have welfare and how it can work for a good cause or bad. Welfare in its most basic meaning is assistance to meet individual’s basic needs whether it is food, housing, or medical needs.

American government had a hands off approach to welfare until the Great Depression caused so much suffering for thousands and thousands of people. It wasn’t just a few people in this town or that town that were suffering, it was most of the people in most cities and towns in the country. During the Great Depression, America had never seen as much unemployment, poverty, homelessness and

hunger. Farms that had been in families for generations failed. Banks failed. Businesses failed. Some people went from riches to rags and others went from just meeting their family’s needs to utter poverty with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Herbert Hoover was President when the Great Depression ripped through the country and he believed like the old guard that the government should not be in the business of giving monetary or other assistance, to people when businesses, churches and civic organizations could do that. The problem was that there were so many people in need that businesses, churches and civic organizations quickly became Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was governor of New York at the time, was quicker than president Hoover to see that the crisis of the Great Depression demanded some form of government intervention. Roosevelt called his plan the New Deal and it consisted of relaxation to help the approximately third of the population that was suffering the most from the worst experience of the Great Depression. Welfare as we know it was created in the form of aid to dependent children and to also help poor unhealthy families with children, and to help women keep their living households when their husbands were off looking for work. Welfare went virtually unchanged for many years except for a name change to aid to lots of families with Dependent children (AFDC).one way it affected millions of people is that for some it encouraged bring up

children without their fathers involved in their household or lives. Because women had a source of income to raise fatherless children. Marriage and homemaker status no longer was a goal for women in society. Welfare became a crutch for many and that is why it was drastically changed in the 1990s when it became Temporary Assistance to needy families (TANF).

Now people must show progress to getting off welfare within 5 years. There is no longer lifetime welfare benefits. Benefits have also decreased over time to where it is not as comparable to having a job. Begin on welfare is like being on the lowest range of the poverty ladder. Welfare is a stigma in certain areas of society and can follow children from before birth throughout their educational years. Statistics about students who receive welfare suggest that they do poorly in school, are poor readers, have poor self-image, devalue education, are manipulative, have family issues, anger and hostility, and inability to follow instructions among other barriers to education. Because the father is often absent. These students act out in school because that crucial element in their lives I missing and the welfare system encouraged it. For example some of my family is on welfare because they are low on income that come in the house which makes it harder on the parents s welfare provide them with the welfare for food so they want be hungry. Also my aunty was on welfare but they soon took her off of it because she made to much money to be on welfare.

Welfare is not that old in America, but there is so much controversy surrounding it. It began after the Great Depression and continues today as a very changed program. The stigma of welfare has always been there and continues to affect young people today especially as we look at the educational outcomes for students who benefit from welfare.