...Social Welfare: Pros and Cons Melissa Pugh Post University Online Social Welfare: Pros and Cons The ever-winding tendrils of hardship are impacting individuals who through the ups and downs of life; have become disabled, unemployed, or perhaps senior citizens. Social welfare is available for those who may find themselves in these unfortunate positions. While working at a Milwaukee University, Julia Doyle’s mother was killed by a senseless drunk-driving accident in 1990. Driven by determination, Doyle saw to it that justice was served however this required many requests for leave and because of this; she was terminated although she had invested ten years at the university. Julia Doyle went on to have a total of three children with little or no support from the father; deprived of many necessities, she became a recipient of welfare. She also admits to drug usage during her fall from grace. Nevertheless, for many, social welfare provokes dependency and others like Julia Doyle (Pomeroy, 2008) utilized its benefits to gain a life of financial stability. According to Flynn (2013), “Welfare is a term used to describe systems by which government agencies provide economic assistance, goods, and services to persons who are unable to care for themselves. Welfare is a form of social policy. Welfare programs serve as social safety nets.” Provision is made for member via social policy, social programs, and welfare enterprises. Upon the transfer of...
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...activities of political parties. It is in this respect that the welfare programs also function. They are also like many others, a source of protection and promotion of welfare. But Adam Smith’s invisible hands theory seems to be working here as well. The individualized selfish motives of gaining votes by the politician leads to actions that benefit the general public such as the welfare reforms. This piece has attempted to compare the welfare reforms of the two political parties, Democrats and Republicans. It then highlights similarities and then the differences in the welfare reform beliefs and actions of the two parties. Welfare programs for any society are very important and have the soothing power to satisfy the general public and its inspirations. There are many areas and all are characterized by one common factor i.e. the betterment or the sustenance of the current situation of the people or the particular community to whom the welfare reforms have been initiated. There are reforms for women, against rape, child abuse, domestic violence, poor and its education, entitlements and many others. Each one of the welfare reforms is hotly debated over again and again showing the disagreement of major parties over many issues. Welfare essentially entails itself into the philosophical notion of judgment and the concept of utilitarianism. The greatest happiness principle seems to be working itself up the welfare bills every now and then. One can note how logical statements could...
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...Welfare programs have been around since the 1900’s. Before then the local government paired with private charitable organizations to share major responsibility for the welfare of the “worthy-poor”. These people were usually identified as the aged, blind, severely disabled, orphans, and sometimes widows with young children. The first department of public welfare was organized in Kansas City, Missouri in April 1910 as a response to a proposed march on the mayor’s office by a large group of unemployed workers. By 1926, 40 states had established some type of public welfare program for mothers of dependent children. When the Great Depression hit, many families suffered. It is estimated that one-fourth of the labor force was unemployed during the worst part of the depression. With many families suffering financial difficulties, the government stepped in to solve the problem and that is where the history of welfare as we know it really began. Welfare history continued to be made in 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Under the act, the federal government gives annual lump sums to the states to use to assist the poor. In turn the states must adhere to certain criteria to ensure that those receiving aid are being encouraged to move from welfare to work. At the end of 2011 more than a hundred million people were dependent on welfare and that number as continued to grow since that time. In 2013 the Census Bureau the number...
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...youths aged 17 plus who now rate at 21.2% of the unemployment rate, and women whose unemployment has also increased (BBC, 2013). As Beveridge states the population of those unemployed were supported through the ‘cradle of the grave’ suggesting that the government was giving unending unemployment benefits regardless of whether the population were actively seeking work. Unemployment policy regarding the workfare gained foothold after WW2 with the emergence of the welfare state. Today this is still the main policy for supporting the unemployed population of Britain. Those out of work now need to show that they are actively seeking work and gaining work experience and skills to make them more employable in the future. As mentioned above, unemployment is a social and economic issue. There are many factors as to why unemployment exists, and why it fluctuates in society. Mainly there are internal and external reasons for this. Internally factors such as education, illness and family can cause unemployment, but also, one can debate more importantly factors such as economic...
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...“On Health and Welfare, Moral Arguments Can Outweigh Economics” article was published on New York Times, the main idea of this articles is deserving and undeserving people regarding the government support. The issues surrounding welfare including health care insurance reform are contentious and difficult to resolve. The early form of welfare was specifically targeted aid to single women with children or people who could demonstrate a need and the ability to maintain minimal assets of their own. Even now, and after a long way of conflict, Congress continues to debate and reform programs. It still brings with it the same intensity, controversy, and conflicting opinion it did years ago. The poor have been always exanimated and categorized into...
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...Welfare, it is on just about everyones' mind, whether it is Medicare or the A.F.D.C. Some believe there is too much and others think there is too little. As the years go by, the need for welfare reform increases. President Clinton had pledged in his 1992 campaign to "end welfare as we know it". Only time will tell by what extremes welfare will change. As technology continues to increase and jobs continue to go overseas, the United States must decide what direction the welfare system should take. As they exist today, welfare systems are an evolution of the thoughts laid out in the 19th and 20th centuries. Before the Industrial Revolution, the responsibility of helping the poor was mainly given to the churches or local communities. As machines took the place of workers, governments were looked upon to help the unemployed. In 1883, Otto Von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, setup the first form of Modern Welfare when he enacted a sickness and maternity law. He followed up this law with a work injury law and an old-age assistance law in 1884 and 1889 respectively. Today European countries such as Germany, Norway, and Sweden have highly sophisticated Welfare systems (Bender, 13). Welfare did not reach the United States, however, until shortly after the Great Depression with Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal." The New Deal brought on new economic and social welfare legislation. This is the first time that the United States Government used federal and public funds to finance...
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...Academic year 2014-2015 Migration towards Europe and the “welfare magnet”: “Determinants of Turkish Migration to EU-15” Master dissertation Student Kristýna Jedličková Home institution Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze Supervisor prof. Claire Naiditch Submission date September 2015 Acknowledgment I would like to express my sincerest thanks to prof. Claire Naiditch for her guidance, support, patience and valuable recommendations. Declaration of authorship I, Kristýna Jedličková hereby declare that the thesis Migration towards Europe and the “welfare magnet” was written by myself and that all presented results are my own, unless stated otherwise. The literature sources are listed in the Literature Review section. Prague, September 30th, 2015 ........................................................ Signature Key words Migration, welfare magnet, public social spending, inflows of migrants, EU’s migratory policy, European welfare system, Turkish welfare system, Turkey, EU-15, gravity model, fixed effect, random effect, Hausman test, country specific fixed effect, time specific fixed effect. Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to analyse which factors drive migration from Turkey towards Europe and whether the welfare benefits play a major role in the decision making process. The analysis is based on a gravitation model of migration in log-log form. The FE and RE methods were employed as estimation techniques and the Hausman test enabled to distinguish them. The present...
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...The Buck Stops Here: Not a Handout, a Hand Up Sharon Nakken Kaplan University CM220: College Composition ll Thousands of welfare investigators across the nation report that only about 2% - 3% of welfare cases involve fraud (Barron, 2012). That is such a small percentage. Could fraud on that small scale really be significant? After closer examination, the significance becomes much clearer. If 2% - 3% of welfare cases are fraudulent, that means between 785,000 to 1.2 million families are receiving welfare illegally (Barron, 2012). That ends up costing taxpayers between 9.0 – 13.5 billion dollars each year (Barron, 2012). That small percentage turns into a very large number of dollars spent annually on welfare recipients who should not be receiving these benefits (Barron, 2012). The welfare system in America today is once again in need of reform. Conditions such as mandatory drug testing, entry into an educational program, and strict time limits need to be placed on individuals who wish to receive welfare. In 2007 The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported that 20% of families receiving welfare claimed to have used illegal drugs at least once in the last year, while 5% said they had an ongoing drug habit (Vitter, 2011). Some who oppose the random drug testing requirement say that it does nothing more than single out the poor and underprivileged. Deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Vanita Gupta claims “Mandatory drug testing of those receiving...
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...The United States a Welfare State The purpose of a government is to set boundaries or laws for a society, as well as to offer welfare. Welfare is defined as health and happiness, but also the opportunity to achieve those wants and needs. The United States is a country that is known to be a place where one can strive to become or undertake whatever dream one may have, although it may become difficult depending on one’s economic status. The United States does offer welfare such as, social security, food stamps, medicaid, and others. However, if one were to compare the U.S. with Denmark, a famous welfare state, the two don’t measure up. Although the United States does offer welfare subsides, it does restrict lower income citizens from obtaining...
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...Should Drug Testing be Mandatory to Receive Welfare Benefits? BCOM/275 Should Drug Testing be Mandatory to Receive Welfare Benefits? Thanks to our ancestors, America is a country built from a foundation of hard work and perseverance. This pioneering spirit has paved the way for many opportunities, as well as rules to be set along the way. This includes mandating laws and acts starting with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. With these guidelines America humbly started as a nation where every citizen was entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These laws stressed the simplest of privileges which included freedom of religion, freedom of speech, protection against enemies, and restriction against monopolies (America's Freedom Documents, 1996-2011). These were all expressions of the American mindset long ago. Fast forward to current America and we find problems we must confront now that are more complicated. These problems have evolved through history that has now made our present day precedence in relation to laws and rules. We now have the freedom to vote, be active in our government, and have an opinion. Our opinions are shaped by the physical world around us and the controversy we have created as a people. However, The United States as an ideal presents a uniquely contradictory set of principles that is generally not openly discussed. This includes the tendency to accept government officials, network...
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...Drug testing for welfare recipients: Con By Austin Keller / In Blogs, Politics / January 17, 2014 See the opposing argument here. When one first hears about the idea of testing welfare recipients to make sure that they are not using drugs, the idea seems to be sound. Of course we do not want welfare money going toward the purchase of drugs when it should be going only to necessary and useful things. As with almost any political idea, however, these policies need to be executed. Political intentions are not realized in an ideal world. With welfare testing, the cold reality is that the costs and barriers of following through on the policy trump the benefits. One of the main reasons for this is the sheer cost of it. Right now, in American politics, money is obviously quite tight—and welfare testing is incredibly expensive. It involves overseeing every individual who participates in the welfare system. It also involves synchronizing this with other large systems of government data, such as crime history, type of welfare received, etc. A governmental entity then has to come up with an effective means of testing people. And finally, the most difficult part is the actual execution of this testing. It is certainly not easy to come up with an effective way to test so many welfare recipients in the state—especially when many welfare recipients come from rural backgrounds. Expense, however, is not the only problem with the idea of testing welfare recipients. It also adds an extra obstacle...
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...Social Welfare Policy Paper: Public Assistance Jennifer Shellhammer University of New England Abstract This paper will discuss a Social Welfare Policy, specifically, public assistance. I have created an overview and provided a concise description of welfare and public assistance, along what social problems it attempts to address. Additionally, it will provide the historical background of public assistance and the economic and political forces which have influenced its development. Furthermore, it will explain the functions of public assistance that people observe and expect, while also addressing what functions are not recognized. Lastly, the paper will provide arguments made for and against public assistance, and what has been said by politicians, and other experts. Concluding, I have also expressed my own perspective on this issue and what changes I would propose to its current state. Social Welfare Policy: Public Assistance The term “welfare” generally refers to programs established by the federal government to assist individuals who are unemployed and poor. Assistance is provided to the poor through several types of programs, which range anywhere from food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, to temporary cash assistance and several forms of housing assistance. These programs were created to prompt effort and attention on specific problem areas and to prevent the deterioration of necessary and essential conditions for individuals and families to successfully...
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...Should Welfare Regulations Be Changed Iris Bates Strayer University Persuasive Paper Part 3: Possible Disadvantages, Answers with Visuals English 215 Research and Writing taught by Professor Weslea Bell March 11, 2014 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is one of the federal assistance programs designed to help families with children providing cash and housing assistance. The cash benefit is often referred to as “welfare”. Welfare recipients are often portrayed as lazy, lacking in ambition, and unwilling to take responsibility for themselves (Brady, 2013). When the recipients of welfare receive the cash and housing benefits is it truly helping or hindering them? Doug Brady states, “the current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work.” This raises the question of should welfare regulations be changed or not? The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, was known as the “welfare reform”. TANF ended the much despised Depression-era federal entitlement to cash benefits for needy single mothers, replacing it with short term, work oriented programs designed and run by individual states (Hymowitz, 2006). Under TANF, the federal government provides a block grant to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs. In order to receive federal funds, states must also spend some of their own dollars on programs for needy family. (Schott, 2012) Congress...
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...Income Guarantee Schemes Amir Hasanat ECON 3505 - Critique of Capitalism Abstract Canada and the United States grapple with situations that necessitate income guarantee schemes but have not implemented the schemes. Income guarantee schemes are social welfare provisions in which governments offer incomes to the citizens to enable them meet their needs as long as they meet established conditions. The origin of this scheme lies in the understanding that every citizen has a right to wealth and property of the state. It is also based on the reality that not all citizens are capable of earning income or sustaining themselves. Income guarantee schemes are based on social welfare models, which conceptualize that it is the role of the government to cater for the needs of the citizenry. Therefore, income guarantee schemes undermine the ideals of capitalism that call for individual efforts for purposes of meeting needs. Income guarantee schemes have a long history of evolution, implementation, and success. Introduction The United States has a number of anti-poverty programs that guarantee economic support to the vulnerable in society (Economist, 2013, p. 1). Income guarantee schemes can be of great relief to a number of poverty stricken people in the country. In Canada, a four-year experiment with income generation schemes was successful but due to economic period of the time, the schemes were discontinued (Belik, 2011, p. 1). Though they intend to end poverty...
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...payments to individuals in the form of Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment, welfare, food stamps and child support. Entitlements also include grants paid in lieu of tax credits to energy firms. Why the debate? Entitlements account for $246 billion and critics of entitlements believe it should be cut and taxpayer money could fund better projects. Supports of entitlements are usually those that have benefited from such programs. However, the shrinking number of taxpayers contributing to government revenues and the growing number of people receiving benefits is cause to worry. The constitutional laws allowing entitlements were enacted in 1860s to protect citizen from poverty or an oppressive government (Jost, 2003). Today, many that benefit from entitlements are from inner city and low-income families and are the people that need entitlements the most. Effects on the economic society Some believe that sitting around waiting on your unemployment or welfare and not actively contributing to society encourages laziness. Added to this increased burden on a shrinking tax payer pool, critics want to cut funding and believe those funds could be best spent in other areas. However, those working closely with the recipients of those funds firmly believe stop funding is not the answer. Robin Tucker, a social worker who supports entitlements say entitlements “should focus on education and job skills not just welfare checks and food stamps.” Most programs are continuous with the exception...
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