What exactly are Social Welfare Programs?
Many Americans today in the United States participate in some form of social welfare. Social welfare program, any of a variety of governmental programs designed to protect citizens from the economic risks and insecurities of life. These programs provide benefits to the elderly or retired, the sick or invalid, dependent survivors, mothers, the unemployed, the work-injured, and families. Just in case my client are unaware of the programs I will give them a list of programs from the federal safety net website such as Negative Income Tax – Two tax credit programs are administered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to distribute money to low-income Americans. The tax credits include a “refundable” portion
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which is paid to individuals and families that owe no income tax for the year. Therefore, this portion of the tax credits act as “negative income tax”. The two programs are the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Child Tax Credit. SNAP – This is a food program for low-income individuals and families. SNAP used to be called the food stamp program and stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It is run by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). Participants receive a debit card which is accepted in most grocery stories for the purchase of food. Housing Assistance – Various housing programs are administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) including rental assistance, public housing and various community development grants. SSI – This is a program to pay cash to low-income individuals over 65 years of age or under 65 if the individual is blind or disabled. SSI stands for Supplemental Security Income and is administered by the Social Security Administration. Pell Grants – This is a grant program administered by the Department of Education to distribute up to $5,550 to students from low-income households to promote postsecondary education (colleges and trade schools). TANF - This is a combined federal and state program that pays cash to low-income households with the goal of moving individuals from welfare to work. TANF stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Child Nutrition – These are food programs administered by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) which include school lunch, breakfast and after school programs. They target children from low-income households and provide free or reduced price meals. Head Start – This is a pre-school program available to kids from low-income families.
It is administered by HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). Job Training Programs – These are a myriad of training programs administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) to provide job training, displacement and employment services generally targeting low-income Americans. WIC - This is a program to provide Healthy food to pregnant women and children up to five years of age. WIC stands for Women, Infants and Children and is available to low-income households. Child Care – This is a block grant program to states and local public and private agencies who administer child care programs to low-income families. It is administered by HHS. LIHEAP – This is a program to aid low-income households that pay a high proportion of household income for home energy, either heating or cooling a residential dwelling. LIHEAP stands for Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and is administered by HHS. Lifeline (Obama Phone) – This is a program to provide discounted phone service, including cell phones, to low-income individuals. The program is administered by the Federal Communications …show more content…
Commission According to Wikipedia website Social programs in the United States are welfare subsidies designed to aid the needs of the U.S.A.
population. Here is a list of examples from the IRS website that will be classified as Social Welfare Organizations and even some nonprofit organizations that qualify as social welfare organizations include: An organization operating an airport that serves the general public in an area with no other airport and that is on land owned by a local government, which supervises the airport’s operation, A community association that works to improve public services, housing and residential parking; publishes a free community newspaper; sponsors a community sports league, holiday programs and meetings; and contracts with a private security service to patrol the community. A community association devoted to preserving the community’s traditions, architecture and appearance by representing it before the local legislature and administrative agencies in zoning, traffic and parking matters. An organization that tries to encourage industrial development and relieve unemployment in an area by making loans to businesses so they will relocate to the area, and an organization that holds an annual festival of regional customs and traditions. TANF is a program created by the congress created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, as part of a federal
effort to “end welfare as we know it.” TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which had provided cash welfare to poor families with children since 1935. According to the center budget and policy priorities” States can use federal TANF and state MOE dollars to meet any of the four goals set out in the 1996 law: “(1) provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; (2) end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; (3) prevent and reduce the incidence of out of wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and (4) encourage the formation and maintenance of two parent families.
In the summer of 1996, Congress finally passed and the President signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996", transforming the nation's welfare system. The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act sets the stage for ongoing reconstruction of welfare systems on a state-by-state basis. The combined programs will increase from nearly $100 billion this year to $130 billion per year in 6 years. Programs included are for food stamps, SSI, child nutrition, foster care, the bloss grant program for child- care, and the new block grant to take the place of AFDC. All of those programs will seek $700 billion over the next 6 years, from the taxpayers of America. This program in its reformed mode will cost $55 billion less than it was assumed to cost if there were no changes and the entitlements were left alone. The current welfare system has failed the very families it was intended to serve. If the present welfare system was working so well we would not be here today.
Welfare is a federally funded program that provides health care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing that is under the umbrella of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Per Welfare Information, eligibility is determined by net income, family size, and any crisis situation such as: pregnancy, homelessness, and unemployment. TANF also requires the recipient to obtain employment within two years of receiving help (2014). A majority of the monies that support Welfare come from taxes paid by the working class and donations from private companie...
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 fundamentally changed the cash welfare system in the United States. It cancelled Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) plan, replacing it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). It abolished the entitlement status of welfare, provided states with strong incentives to impose time limits, and tied funding levels to the states’ success in moving welfare recipients into work. It is well known that caseloads plummeted during the 1990s and that employment rates of single mothers--the primary recipients of welfare in the United States—rose almost as fast (Shipler).
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Administration for children and families: about TANF. Retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/tanf/about.html
There are many social welfare programs designed to provide income support for Canadians, mostly for those with little to no income. Some may criticize these programs as too generous or an incentive to be lazy, however, welfare rates are below the poverty line, and most of the people receiving benefits cannot find permanent employment or are disabled. In fact, 68% of food bank users receive some form of social assistance. Studies done at the University of Manitoba have shown that guaranteed income programs reduce hospital visits caused by work injuries, domestic violence, and mental health issues, which would save billions of dollars in healthcare and prison costs annually. Extending welfare to the bottom 10% of Canadian would cost approximately $10,000 per person (not taking into account savings in the healthcare system a...
This mini-paper will discuss the social welfare system. The mini-paper includes a discussion of welfare Policy, residual and institutional approach, and what is Social Welfare and Social Security. Midgely, (2009), pointed out that social welfare systems deliver services that facilitate and empower our society, especially to those persons who require assistance in meeting their basic human needs. The goal of social welfare is to provide social services to citizens from diverse cultures, and examples include Medicare, Medicaid, and food benefits. Midgley,( 2009).
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program was developed to help needy families become self-sufficient.¹ The TANF program was created by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996.² TANF was created by The Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) out of the preexisting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which itself was created by Congress in 1935 as part of the Social Security Act.² There were some notable differences between the PRWORA and the TANF when it was created, the most noted differences were that the TANF allowed states to use TANF dollars to support child care, for job search support, social services,etc. and there were no requirements on how much could be spent on cash aid directly.² Also, the entitlement aspect of the PRWORA ended and states were not required to serve all eligible families/individuals.²
Welfare assistance itself is provided from monies managed by a federally funded program that provides health care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment benefits, cash aid, and housing to citizens in need. It is categorized the governmental umbrella of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). According to Welfare Information, eligibility is determined by net income, family size, and any crisis situation such as: pregnancy, homelessness, or unemployment (2014). TANF also requires the recipient to obtain employment within two years of rec...
Social welfare is the use of material and physical aid by the government for its citizens in need. It comes in the form of unemployment compensation, food stamps, retirement benefits, and various social services ranging from drug rehabilitation to child care assistance. Also, before there was public welfare provided by the government, there was private welfare issued by private organizations, like churches and groups of individuals wanting to help the less fortunate. Some of those institutions still live on today, and provide people with food, shelter and clothing. Those places are where the ideas of public welfare started, and soon worked their way up to the people that could make those decisions. Unemployment compensation is given when an individual is unemployed, and cannot pay for the necessities. That payment is intended to be used to buy clothes, food, pay bills, ect. Other types of welfare that are commonly used are retirement benefits. Retirement benefits are given out to individuals who have reached the age of 65, and have accumulated money in taxes over their lifetime. Different benefits for the retirees in include
The reality that exists for these individuals is different than that which is assumed by many. People assume that recipients are lazy and that they do not want to work, or that they are very promiscuous women who have children in order to continue receiving help from the government. The realities for these...
Welfare can be defined as “systems by which government agencies provide economic assistance, goods, and services to persons who are unable to care for themselves” (Issitt). The United States welfare system is an extremely complex and unique entity that encompasses ideas and concepts from an abundance of different places. Many people believe the current system is an excellent resource for the population, while others believe the current welfare system requires reform and budget cuts to become effective.
Karen Bridget Murray’s article, “Governing ‘Unwed Mothers’ in Toronto at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”, is a valuable reference into the struggles and triumphs of social welfare for unwed mothers. For me the article highlighted how government ideologies influence social welfare, how important the change from religious reformers practices to social work was and finally how appalling it is that the struggles and barriers these women faced are still relevant to single mothers today.
The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program was created under the 1996 welfare reform law known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (Falk, 2014). TANF is funded by a $16.5 billion-per-year basic federal block grant. Each state is also required to contribute at least $10.4 billion under a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) requirement (Schott, 2012). TANF’s primary purpose is to fund a wide range of benefits and services for low-income families with children. These services include cash assistance, child care, and services for children who have been or are at risk of being abused or neglected
Welfare programs are an important part of American society. Without any type of American welfare, people will starve, children will not receive the proper education, and people will not receive any medical help simply because they do not have the resources available to them. Each of the three aspects of the American welfare system are unique in their own ways because they are funded differently and the benefits are given to different people. While support for these welfare systems has declined in the more recent years, the support for it when it was created was strong. There are three aspects of the American Welfare System that include social insurance programs, public assistance programs, and private or sector welfare.
What is TANF? TANF is an acronym for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; it is a program that provides cash assistance and supportive services to assist families with children under the age of eighteen, helping them achieve economic self-sufficiency. TANF began on July 1, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children through the United States Department of Health and Human Services. This cash benefit is often referred to simply as "welfare" (Wikipedia, 2015).