The WWII Proposal for the Provision of a Welfare State
The proposals made during the Second World War for the provision of a
Welfare State were made in order to eliminate poverty from the
country. Various proposals were made that aimed to achieve this.
One proposal, which was the main aim of the "Beveridge Report" was to
abolish Want by providing social insurance for all: this meant
providing various benefits and making people pay contributions, both
depending on the class of the individual. Retirement pensions (over 60
for women, over 65 for men) and children's allowances would be
provided. Employees would get benefits for unemployment and
disability, and employers, traders, independent workers and people of
working age without a job would get training benefit. Housewives would
be given maternity grant, provision for widowhood and separation. It
was also proposed that everyone should be covered for comprehensive
medical treatment and has his or her funeral expenses paid for. In
order for this to be financed, everyone of working age, except for
housewives, would pay a single contribution once a week. The
contribution each individual should pay would depend on what benefits
they themselves would receive.
White papers and other acts were also written in order to deal with
the post-war reconstruction. Ideas about how to tackle the lack of
housing were mentioned in a post-war housing policy, which estimated
that 750,000 new houses would be needed. A "Town and Country Planning
Act" was also devised to control the construction of offices,
factories and houses. In 1944 a white paper was made, proposing "A
free National Health Service...
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...e who did
not get into Grammar Schools had to attend Secondary Modern Schools.
As private schools still remained, those who could afford them did not
need to pass the 11+ to get a good education. This left the working
class in Secondary Moderns, with hardly any more chance than before of
going on to higher education.
The Labour Party succeeded in beginning to overcome the "Five Giants".
They however, did not completely abolish them as they had hoped. They
were far to optimistic, and could not possibly have expected to
achieve this. The difficulty they encountered was that they had spent
much time planning to eliminate these problems, but not enough effort
was put into implementing their plans. Had they more money and more
time, Labour could have dealt with these setbacks, and achieved most
of what they had hoped.
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.
They did, however, manage to pass the Wheatley Housing Act, providing subsidies to local authorities to build housing for the working class, addressing the threat of disease spread by poor housing and sanitation.
When speaking about Welfare we try to avoid it, turning welfare into an unacceptable word. In the Article “One Nation On Welfare. Living Your Life On The Dole” by Michael Grunwald, his point is to not just only show but prove to the readers that the word Welfare is not unacceptable or to avoid it but embrace it and take advantage of it. After reading this essay Americans will see the true way of effectively understanding the word welfare, by absorbing his personal experiences, Facts and Statistics, and the repetition Grunwald conveys.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once asserted “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” in belief for a change, for a better nation, and for guidance to those who have lost all faith in humanity. During the Great Depression, The United States faced many different scenarios in which it caused people to doubt and question the “American Dream.” The Great depression began in 1929 and ended in 1939. In these ten years, people went through unemployment, poverty, banks failed and people lost hope. President Herbert Hoover thought it wasn’t his responsibility to try and fix such issues in the nation. He felt it was just something that everyone was facing and it will be over soon enough. However, years passed and nothing seemed to
There have been numerous debates within the last decade over what needs to be done about welfare and what is the best welfare reform plan. In the mid-1990s the TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act was proposed under the Clinton administration. This plan was not received well since it had put a five year lifetime limit on receiving welfare and did not supply the necessary accommodations to help people in poverty follow this guideline. Under the impression that people could easily have found a job and worked their way out of poverty in five years, the plan was passed in 1996 and people in poverty were immediately forced to start looking for jobs. When the TANF Act was up for renewal earlier this year, the Bush administration carefully looked at what the TANF Act had done for the poverty stricken. Bush realized that, in his opinion, the plan had been successful and should stay in effect with some minor tweaking. Bush proposed a similar plan which kept the five year welfare restriction in place but did raise the budgeted amount of money to be placed towards childcare and food stamps. Both the TANF Act and Bush's revised bill have caused a huge controversy between liberal and conservative activists. The liberals feel that it is cruel to put people in a situation where they can no longer receive help from the government since so many people can not simply go out and get a job and work their way out of poverty. They feel if finding a job was that easy, most people would have already worked their way out of poverty. The conservatives feel that the plans, such as the TANF Act, are a surefire way to lower poverty levels and unemployment rates as well as decrease the amount o...
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.
With the urban housing reforms there were subsidized housing projects created for low income people. These areas at the time were a great idea. The country had millions of people flooding in every single
In today’s America, there are many people who would either be disgusted at the very mention of Welfare or be highly grateful for its existence. I believe that in order for welfare to be more effective in America, there must be reform. From the time of its inceptions in 1935, welfare has lent a helping hand to many in crisis (Constitution Rights Foundation). However, at present many programs within the system are being abused and the people who are in real need are being cheated out of assistance. The year after the creation of welfare unemployment was just about twenty percent (Unemployment Statistics). The need for basic resources to survive was unparallel. Today, many people face the same needs as many did during the 30s. Some issues with
The accomplishments taken place upon the onset of the many New Deal legislations owe much to the seeds implanted and unknowingly disseminated by the pre-WWI Progressive movement. Sparked by the new image as a world power, industrialization, and immigration at the dawn of the new century, a new found reform movement gripped the nation. With the new found image of the nation and world as a whole, the reforms advanced the position of the previously ignored people of the nation, as did its reincarnation and rebirth apparent in the New Deal.
The United States is sometimes described as a “reluctant welfare state.” I agree with this statement. Too often there are programs created by our government that, although may be lined with good intentions, end up failing in their main purpose. The government may, and hopefully does, seek to help its citizens. However, by applying unreasonable qualifying or maintenance criteria, or too many restrictions that bar people from even receiving aid at all, they end up with many more problems than solutions. Three examples of policies that do this are: Medicare, No Child Left Behind, and TANF, or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Since the Welfare reform law was introduced in 1996 it has impacted American society greatly. The new welfare policy, named the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), replaced the Aid to Family and Dependent Children (AFDC) program; they have five known differences that only affect the ones who need the assistance. Critics argue that the TANF has negatively impacted the society while some argue that it has not. Linda Burnham, author of “Welfare Reform, Family Hardship & Woman of Color,” asserts that “welfare reform has increased the hardship faced by many women leaving welfare for work and their movement into low-wage jobs, exposes them to higher level of housing insecurities, homelessness, food insecurity, and hunger.” She also argues that women of color “are especially vulnerable to the negative impact of welfare reform” (38).
During class, the Progressive Era from 1890-1916 was discussed. The countless reforms happened in the Progressive Era were bound to be controversial. Nevertheless, based on our study, it was my contention that the Progressive Era was successful on account of the changes made on social welfare and on the role of presidents.
The French welfare system is complex and covers a wide variety of topics, from minimum wage to taxation systems to family benefits. The United States’ welfare system is not any less complex, and has similarities to Frances, but also has key differences. France has the idea that their system is more democratic than the United States’, but it can be difficult to determine with so many different parts to the system. There are also things that each county could learn from the other that would improve the status of their social welfare sytem.
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's
benefits, some benefits included maternity leave and housing benefits. The social policies main challenges were labeled as “The Five Giants’: Squalor, ignorance, want idleness and disease. There was a legislative response to Beveridge’s “Giant Evils”: the Education Act 1944, National Insurance Act 1946, National Assistance Act 1948, National Health Service 1948, Children Act 1948, Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and the New Towns Act 1946.