Preview

The Ruling Ideology in Welfare

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
535 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Ruling Ideology in Welfare
By: Casilda Adames
E-mail: cassieluvbug@aol.com

Core Studies 3 Casilda Adames Take-Home Exam November 16, 1999 The ruling ideology dealing with welfare is a negative view among the majority of Americans. It states that welfare recipients are lazy people who have lots of children and collect checks for a long period of time. This statement is believed mostly among higher-class people because they feel that if they can work hard for their money, welfare recipients can do the same, and not live off other people's money. Charles Murray supports the statement "welfare policies encourage poor women to have more children" in one of his books, but is proven wrong by careful studies and demographics. It has been studied that welfare has almost no effect on bearing children. These studies show that younger women are more likely to be poor and their poverty makes their children poor. American adults by far are more unequal in wealth and income than any other industrial society as well as the declining incomes of young men since the mid-1970s. Many young men cannot afford to keep their children out of poverty or decide not to the handle the duties or responsibilities of marriage, leaving young mothers and children even poorer, leading them to depend on welfare. According to a New York Times article dated 2/29/92, there are fewer children receiving assistance from welfare and are not just being lazy but and collecting checks, but actually getting off welfare. This ruling ideology that most of the American society supports leads to the lack of wide political support and budget-cutting of means-tested programs. These mean-tested programs are available only to those people who can prove that they are poor. Only Social Security and Medicare, both Universal programs, have largely survived cutbacks in recent years because it is widely accepted throughout the American society. The reason it is accepted in the American society is that everybody contributes to social security and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The scholarly criteria for this paper includes neutrality throughout the paper, sources/studies to back up claims and vast knowledge of the subject which becomes obvious with the complex words and explanations. Neutrality is important so you do not allow your own biases to skew the results of your study or you paper. Without neutrality, you might overlook details that could potentially counter your ideas. Sources and studies are very important to prove that your ideas are wrong or right with direct numbers. Since numbers can't lie they will always give you the truth if the calculations are right. A vast knowledge of your subject is also very important especially with writing an article to teach other people. You can't teach…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The welfare system has been infamously labeled as a "free money system" for unmotivated women with children they no longer wish to care to raise. This social stigma has burdened those who truly need government support to survive and get back on their feet. Ironically, welfare does very little to help woman move up the social latter, forcing women to seek alternative sources of income, housing, child-care,…

    • 1765 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1996 Welfare Reform

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Our book presentation was based on the book, $2 A Day. In the book, the authors argue that the 1996 welfare reform is incomplete with poor consequences. They argue that the new welfare reform not only cannot help the families in crisis, but also increase the number of individuals that live on only $2 a day. Throughout the book, the authors point out the flaws of the 1996 welfare reform and provide suggestions to modify it. The authors argue when we are trying to help the poor to live off poverty, we have to help them in a supportive way. Having to spend hours, days and weeks to apply and obtain cash assistance from the new welfare program when they are needed will greatly decrease their self-confidence in the society, which is very important…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Federally funded and governed us welfare began in the 1930s. Welfare isn’t bad to get. Some people get welfare and some don’t. Some people get them because they be broke and being on welfare. The use welfare stayed in the hands of federally government and the the type and amount of aid available to individual and dependent children varies from state to state. Once an appointment is completed a case worker will review all required documents, applications and information provided at the meeting and apply for welfare program one must contact the local human service department located in the phone book. Common documents asked for are proof of income, ID, and utility bills or other proof of residency. Once and appointment is completed a case worker will review all required documents application and…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Welfare is nothing new to the citizens of this country. It is a concept that arose over a century ago. Welfare was made famous by Bill Clinton, in 1996, and it has brought up much controversy. Arguments suggest the welfare system is highly abused by its members while others believe it is the answer to the nation’s poverty. Although the welfare system is state regulated, many people believe it is taken advantage of by underserving people. Often, people with nasty habits, sale their food stamp cards for extra cash, cigarettes, and drugs. Most of the time, these people have children that have to go without because their parent puts their government assistance towards unhealthy addictions.…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This increase in budget and spending is because every year there are more Americans who need financial help. But, do these people need financial help; or is it that the American population knows that only a minority of welfare programs require you to work? Mathew Spalding along with poverty expert Robert Rector, “...found that only two, the earned income tax credit and the additional child refundable credit, require recipients to actually work for their benefits”. (Spalding). When Rector examined all of the federal government’s welfare program (69), there were only three programs which required participants to work.…

    • 2128 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lyter, D., Sills, M., Oh, G., & Institute for Women 's Policy Research, W. (2002). Children in Single-Parent Families Living in Poverty Have Fewer Supports after Welfare Reform. IWPR Research in Brief. Retrieved from ERIC database.…

    • 2345 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Welfare is a government program that provides money, medical care, food, housing, and other things that people need in order to survive. People who can receive help from these welfare programs are children, elders, the disabled, and others who cannot support their families on their current income. The welfare program has gone from a well-meaning program designed to sustain people who are unable to work and provide for their children, to a program that has become counterproductive to eliminating the unending dependence of the recipients. It must be understood that the welfare system, as we know it, must be fixed over a long period of time; but unfortunately there are no quick fixes.…

    • 796 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    California had a policy in place called the, “Maximum Family Grant Rule”, but it was recently repealed as the state felt it was doing more harm than good. This policy did not reduce the number of children being born to welfare recipients as they had hoped and California felt children were not getting the benefits they needed. If you are on welfare and make the decision to have another child, you should not be allowed to receive even more compensation for that child. Many women are using the system to justify having more children and see these programs as “free money.” Not to say that women are having more children because of this program but it’s not deterring them either. We need to stop throwing money at the problem and instill more programs to help people to be employed and learn how to live on their own. It goes back to the old saying that if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, you teach him to fish and he eats for the rest of his life. The government feels like it’s doing its job by taking care of the children but it actually is putting children at a disadvantage later in life. “A study by Gordon Dahl looks at data from Norway's "disability insurance" (DI) system and finds that when a parent is allowed DI, their adult child's likelihood of participation over the next five years increases by 6%, and grows to 12% after ten…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the 1930’s the face of welfare has been shaped multiple times with many different types of reforms. These reform were made in an attempt to reduce the number of people who depend on government assistance, and to help those people get back on their feet and function in a normal society. Some reforms that were major in the beginning steps of welfare were The Welfare Reform Act of 1996, the (PRWORA) Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, and The (TANF) Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. “In 1996 a welfare reform act was passed” (U.S Welfare System 2). “The welfare Reform act was a catalyst needed to begin this new era of welfare benefits and provision” (U.S Welfare System 4). As a result of this reform employment rates of recipients soared and caseloads dropped dramatically, But looking at the bigger picture this paved way for such a dramatic change in the society and how the government helped the people of the United States. Following this…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 had three main purposes and several different opinions on whether they were going to work or not. The main purposes of the Welfare Reform Act were to reduce welfare dependence and increase employment, to reduce child poverty, and to reduce illegitimacy and strengthen marriage (Rector, R., & Fagan, P. F., February 6, 2003). Due to the abundance of opinions and opposing facts it is hard to tell whether or not which positive and negative facts are true when it comes to how effective these purposes were after the Welfare Reform Act was implemented.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people believe our welfare system is poor, unregulated, and unstable. Most individuals who are on welfare abuse the privileges they receive; moreover, a vast amount of the individuals do not even need the financial support. Our welfare system should be changed in order to support those who really need aid. It is terrible to see individuals who truly need help not be able to receive it because of other people who take advantage of something they do not need.…

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Welfare has become more accepted by mainstream American society, and it has become more of a long term commitment for some. More people than ever are now dependent on government handouts in order to survive, and the workforce is slowly shrinking as people give up looking for jobs and see government assistance as the only way to put food on the table” (Concordian).…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Chappell, Marisa. The War on Welfare: Family, Poverty, and Politics in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2010. Print.…

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Welfare Reform Act

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages

    There are both positive and negative implications of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 on Medicaid. A negative implication is that even though most of the people on welfare and Medicaid are able-bodied people who could be self-sufficient if they had to be, Medicaid and other social programs reinforce these people’s laziness and unwillingness to contribute to society. Welfare reform has only decreased handouts marginally. A positive implication is that some effort was made to reduce the number of people who were dependent upon the state. The genetic implications of the welfare system and Medicaid in particular are terrifying to contemplate. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 was a response to overwhelming public criticism by the working class on the entitlement programs which allowed non-contributing members of society easy and complete access to “FREE” health care, “FREE” housing and “FREE” education that a working person could never get. The working class continues to seethe in anger that our hard earned money is stolen by a corrupt government and redistributed to people too lazy to get a job, or to people who are not US citizens and who do not pay into the system. The Welfare Reform Act did NOT cause existing Medicaid beneficiaries to lose necessary coverage. We can see now that the Welfare Reform Act was only marginally effective in reducing welfare fraud and increasing personal responsibility. Sadly, the Welfare Reform Act has not been successful in meeting its intended goals.…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays