Free Essays on Welfare

The United States’ welfare system is a program that enables needy Americans to sustain themselves and provide for their basic needs, which include shelter, food, and clothing. Programs are aimed at helping people unable to support themselves fully or earn a living; necessities that most people can provide on their own through means of labor. Welfare is designed to aid those people who are incapable of working or obtaining any help from family members or other sources. But how is this money obtained? Welfare programs are funded through means of taxes by the same Americans who are part of the labor force. Essentially, all countries should have welfare programs that provide for those people who are needy. However, in order to avoid the dependence of welfare among different groups in our society, government should create policies to modify the current socioeconomic issues and be more selective in deciding just how needy is needy. Over the past decade, the number of foreign immigrants in the United States has risen drastically. According to Virginia Abernethy, â€Å"immigration accounts for nearly half of U.S. population growth† (Abernethy). The reason for this drastic increase is mainly due to the socioeconomic conditions of the neighboring countries. As a result, our nation has found the need to adjust to the overwhelming growth of the population; it has needed to provide for those immigrants who upon arrival are unable to do so for themselves. Indeed, the United States’ welfare system, though not generous by Western European standards, stack up pretty well when compared to the standard of living available in most of the world’s less-developed countries (Borjas). As a result, many immigrants rely on the aid of the United States’ government to sustain themselves since this assistance discourages work. Consequently, welfare system has been altered and so has its purpose, making it unjust to provide funds for people who have never c... Free Essays on Welfare Free Essays on Welfare Last year, the Maryland NAACP released a report concluding that "the ready access to a lifetime of welfare and free social service programs is a major contributory factor to the crime problems we face today."(1) Their conclusion appears to be confirmed by academic research. For example, research by Dr. June O'Neill's and Anne Hill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that a 50 percent increase in the monthly value of combined AFDC and food stamp benefits led to a 117 percent increase in the crime rate among young black men.(2) Welfare contributes to crime in several ways. First, children from single-parent families are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. According to one study, children raised in single-parent families are one-third more likely to exhibit anti-social behavior.(3) Moreover, O'Neill found that, holding other variables constant, black children from single- parent households are twice as likely to commit crimes as black children from a family where the father is present. Nearly 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes, as do 43 percent of prison inmates.(4) Research indicates a direct correlation between crime rates and the number of single-parent families in a neighborhood.(5) As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted in her seminal article for The Atlantic Monthly: The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature. The nation's mayors, as well as police officers, social workers, probation officers, and court officials, consistently point to family break up as the most important source of rising rates of crime.(6) At the same time, the evidence of a link between the availability of welfare and out-of-wedlock births is overwhelming. There ... Free Essays on Welfare When it was originally conceived during a time of economic distress, the welfare program supplied aid to those in need. Welfare aid was received primarily by widowed and divorced mothers, and it served as a cushion to break their fall into a different lifestyle, so that they could get back on their feet and walk on there own with the intent to get there life on track. However today it has come to serve as a paycheck for irresponsible Americans. Welfare is like patching a water main with duct tape; you have to constantly make sure that you keep putting more tape on it to keep it in check, I believe. Welfare programs should show the poor they must learn to fish for themselves if recipients are ever going to work again to support themselves. With this in mind, we must change our welfare system. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: â€Å"I can now see the end of public assistance in America.† FDR’s declaration did not come true considering the amounts of money the federal government was giving out to the poor. The sums were intended to give the needy a boost that would theoretically start the poor towards economic success. That didn’t work. Since then, and over the past 25 years, welfare spending designed to achieve FDR’s goal has totaled hundreds of billions of dollars. Since then, income support to welfare recipients multiplied more than five times in constant dollars. That is, relative to inflation and cost of living adjustments. Since then, the idea of ending public assistance in America has become more and more absurd. Since the early days when welfare helped widows or divorced women make the difficult change to a new start, it’s major function has changed. In a Los Angeles Times poll from 1985, 70 percent of poor women said it is â€Å"almost always† or â€Å"often† true that â€Å"poor young women have babies so they can collect welfare.† Two thirds said that welfare... Free Essays on Welfare The United States’ welfare system is a program that enables needy Americans to sustain themselves and provide for their basic needs, which include shelter, food, and clothing. Programs are aimed at helping people unable to support themselves fully or earn a living; necessities that most people can provide on their own through means of labor. Welfare is designed to aid those people who are incapable of working or obtaining any help from family members or other sources. But how is this money obtained? Welfare programs are funded through means of taxes by the same Americans who are part of the labor force. Essentially, all countries should have welfare programs that provide for those people who are needy. However, in order to avoid the dependence of welfare among different groups in our society, government should create policies to modify the current socioeconomic issues and be more selective in deciding just how needy is needy. Over the past decade, the number of foreign immigrants in the United States has risen drastically. According to Virginia Abernethy, â€Å"immigration accounts for nearly half of U.S. population growth† (Abernethy). The reason for this drastic increase is mainly due to the socioeconomic conditions of the neighboring countries. As a result, our nation has found the need to adjust to the overwhelming growth of the population; it has needed to provide for those immigrants who upon arrival are unable to do so for themselves. Indeed, the United States’ welfare system, though not generous by Western European standards, stack up pretty well when compared to the standard of living available in most of the world’s less-developed countries (Borjas). As a result, many immigrants rely on the aid of the United States’ government to sustain themselves since this assistance discourages work. Consequently, welfare system has been altered and so has its purpose, making it unjust to provide funds for people who have never c... Free Essays on Welfare Welfare is one of America’s most important social policies aimed at helping the poor. Most of the current poor come from poor neighborhoods where dilapidated living conditions and deteriorating neighborhoods shape failure. Young people are cheated of the basic foundation from which to grow because of the lack of jobs available to their parents, forcing them into the welfare system. Although not all welfare recipients live in urban areas, most do and it is important to examine the current welfare system and the direction it is heading toward in order to improve the conditions of our poor citizens. Over the last five years, welfare caseloads have become predominantly urban according to a report done by the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. While welfare caseloads have dropped and some studies suggest that poverty has been reduced since the enactment of welfare reform five years ago, many cities are still struggling to help welfare recipients move into and stay in the workforce. Cities face unique challenges to welfare reform, including having a greater share of the nation’s welfare caseloads, being home to the hardest to serve, and now confronting an economic recession that further threatens low-income workers. As welfare rolls fall, families that rely on government assistance are increasingly concentrated in big cities. Nearly three in every five people on welfare can be found in the 100 largest U.S. cities. Welfare recipients are becoming clustered in big cities and many are being racially isolated, with African Americans and Hispanics accounting for a growing share of the families who remain on rolls. Between 1994 and 2000, the proportion of the nation’s welfare families that live in the 100 largest cities rose significantly from 47 percent to 58 percent. Moving these people off welfare is more difficult in these big cities rather than in the suburbs. In these cities many families face a shortage ...