Social Welfare Policies Today
What is social welfare policy? Social welfare policy is a term used for many different government programs which are designed to provide people with protection against want and deprivation, plus to improve their health and physical well being, to provide educational and employment training opportunities, and in other words to enable them to lead more satisfactory, meaningful, and productive lives. Chapter 17 in my American Government Continuity And Change book is titled Social Welfare Policy. The chapter goes over three major points. The points being: The roots of Social Welfare Policy, The Policy-Making Process and Social Welfare Policies Today. The roots of social welfare talks about how most of the social welfare programs in the United States are largely a product of the twentieth century, but their origins can be traced far back into the nations past. Back into the Great Depression of the 1930's. It talks about Income Security, National Health Insurance and Public Education. The next point is The Policy-Making Process which goes over the seven stages of the public policy process which are Problem Recognition and Definition, Agenda Setting, Policy Formulation, Policy Adoption, Budgeting, Polic
AFDC in the early 1930's offered cash assistance to mothers (mostly widows) with dependent children. But in 1950 AFDC was expanded to include not only dependent children but also mothers themselves or other adults with whom dependent children were living. When AFDC first started it was small because there were few unmarried mothers in 1935. But since then it has expanded greatly due to increasing numbers of children born to unwilling mothers, the growing divorce rate, and the migration of poor people to cities. Now most families covered by AFDC are headed by single mothers. In 1988 congress passed legislation to reform AFDC. Titled the Family and Child Support Act, the law seeks to move people off welfare and into productive jobs. The way that works is that each state must operate a Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program to provide education, training, and job experience for members of welfare families. By early 1992 some 500,000 persons were participating in the act's education and training programs. During the 1992 campaign, President Clinton pledged to "end welfare as we know it," and the Republican majority in the 104th Congress also moved to tackle the welfare problem. Most teenage mothers would no longer be eligible for benefits and some bills would prohibit increasing assistance to families that had additional children while on welfare rolls. Also most adults on welfare would have to enroll in a job-training program within two years or find a job. Medicare has become a costly program because people live longer, the elderly need more hospital and doctor's services, and medical care costs are rising rapidly. Spending has grown enormously in the Medicare program from $37.5 billion in 1980 to $203.1 billion in 1996. There are two general categories for income security. There are non-means-based programs that are programs such as social security where benefits are provided irrespective of the income or means of recipients. And there are means-tested programs that require that people must have incomes below specified levels to be eligible for benefits such as food stamps. In the non-means-based program there is a program called Social Security. The way Social Security works is that workers pay taxes that go directly to providing benefits for retirees. A payroll tax of 7.65 percent on the first $62,700 of wages or salaries is paid by the worker and another 7.65 percent is paid by the employer onto the Social Security trust fund. People are eligible to receive retirement benefits at age sixty-five. If you retire earlier at age sixty-two you will receive a reduced benefit. Expenditures for Social Security have greatly increased during the last couple of decades, b
Some common words found in the essay are:
Social Security, Welfare Policies, Security Income, Stamps AFDC, Food Stamp, President Clinton, Children AFDC, George Bush, Medicaid Medicare, Skills JOBS, social security, social welfare, social welfare policies, public education, welfare policies, income security, health care, food stamps, dependent children, social welfare policy, welfare policy, receive benefits, security income legal, supplemental security income, income legal immigrants,
Approximate Word count = 1818
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
