Welfare Reform
Welfare Recipients and Adult Education
Welfare Recipients and Adult Education
There is an enormous disparity between American households in their ability to afford and attend adult education. Suffice it to say that the plethora of barriers faced by families able to make a living through working a forty plus hour a week job would definitely hinder a family living on or just above the poverty level from getting a higher adult education degree. This paper examines and explores the possibility and difficulty of the single family female head of the household’s prospects of gaining an adult education in the United States . There will be a discussion on the barriers that family members see as preventing consideration of attending adult …show more content…
education classes. There is a look at the effects that the history of welfare reform and the effect the Welfare Reform bill has on families in general and single family black female head of the household on welfare specifically.
The Household Redefined The contemporary family as defined in America 30 to 50 years ago no longer has the place of being considered the typical family. Families now are considered blended, mixed or hybrid, headed by Aunts, Uncles, even Grandparents. Such a variety of different heads of the family causes adult educators and the government private agencies that seek to provide post-secondary education to adult learners concern. The concern is the ability to provide adequate adult education and a means for the adult learner to overcome obstacles that prevent him or her from pursuing higher education.
Barriers That Hinder Adult Learners
Large-scale surveys, such as the U.S. National Higher Education Survey, the
Canadian Adult Education and Training Survey, and the International Adult Literacy
Survey (IALS), pose a battery of questions on barriers but only to persons who indicated that they failed to take courses or programs they wanted to take.
“One such survey shows the percentage of adults reporting specific types of barriers to participation.” The various reasons the adult learners choose not to participate ranged from job related, family related, institutional, or dispositional related barriers.
Welfare …show more content…
Reform
A brief history of the welfare system will readily display that the program was not meant to perform as a government program designed to support the growing number of families that receive assistance.
The program “Aide to Dependent Children (ADC) was established by the Social Security Act of 1935. A grant program designed to provide welfare payment for needy children without parental support or care”. Before 1950 the money was specifically meant to care for the child. From 1950 to 1962 the federal government added funds that were to go toward the maintenance costs of a caretaker relative, an unemployed parent, and the name was changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children. “Welfare rolls peaked in 1994, reaching more than 5 million cases---14.2 million individual recipients. Before welfare reform, one child in seven received AFDC” Today the welfare program has shifted, transformed, balloon into a multi-faceted organization that has made it easier for unwed mothers to gain assistance when they have children.
The Problem of Welfare Recipients A potential problem that welfare recipients experience is the difficulty of juggling the requirements of finding a job that adequately provides enough to pay for the child care and the monthly living expenses. Finding child care while the mother is participates in some form of adult education is also extremely challenging. If there is not a nearly relative or friend that will help, professional child care services are difficult
to afford on a single parent budget and impossible without a grant or educational loan for a welfare recipient.
Welfare Reform Oversight The welfare reform law has not properly addressed the problem of how to provide a way for the individual on welfare to wean off government dependence through some form of educational assistance. This oversight will only continue to deny potential workers to gain the skills necessary to compete for skilled labor jobs in society. Adult educators recognized this fact and were prone to think that by not allowing for some sort of training program, this deficiency would undermine the full intent of welfare reform. “Some proponents of the law were requiring recipients take the first job available to them without allowing necessities as sufficient literary skills”. This allowed little chance for the welfare reform law to help head of households achieve self-sufficiency through long term employment.
This paper examined and explored the possibility of the single family female head of the household prospects of gaining an adult education in the United States . There will be a discussion on the barriers that family members see as preventing consideration of attending adult education classes. There was a look at the history of welfare reform and the effect the Welfare Reform bill had on families in general, and how the bill affected the possibility of single family female head of the household on gaining the necessary training to be self-sufficient.
References
(Beach & Tyrrel, 2012)Retrieve from http://search.proquest.com/docview/200348206?accountid=458
Dave, D. M., Corman, H., & Reichman, N. E. (2012). Effects of welfare reform on education acquisition of adult women. Journal of Labor Research, 33(2), 251-282. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12122-012-9130-4
Ntiri, D. W. (2000). The transition of female family heads of household from welfare to work: Implications for adult education. Western Journal of Black Studies, 24(1), 34-42.
Welfare Recipients and Adult Education
There is an enormous disparity between American households in their ability to afford and attend adult education. Suffice it to say that the plethora of barriers faced by families able to make a living through working a forty plus hour a week job would definitely hinder a family living on or just above the poverty level from getting a higher adult education degree. This paper examines and explores the possibility and difficulty of the single family female head of the household’s prospects of gaining an adult education in the United States . There will be a discussion on the barriers that family members see as preventing consideration of attending adult …show more content…
education classes. There is a look at the effects that the history of welfare reform and the effect the Welfare Reform bill has on families in general and single family black female head of the household on welfare specifically.
The Household Redefined The contemporary family as defined in America 30 to 50 years ago no longer has the place of being considered the typical family. Families now are considered blended, mixed or hybrid, headed by Aunts, Uncles, even Grandparents. Such a variety of different heads of the family causes adult educators and the government private agencies that seek to provide post-secondary education to adult learners concern. The concern is the ability to provide adequate adult education and a means for the adult learner to overcome obstacles that prevent him or her from pursuing higher education.
Barriers That Hinder Adult Learners
Large-scale surveys, such as the U.S. National Higher Education Survey, the
Canadian Adult Education and Training Survey, and the International Adult Literacy
Survey (IALS), pose a battery of questions on barriers but only to persons who indicated that they failed to take courses or programs they wanted to take.
“One such survey shows the percentage of adults reporting specific types of barriers to participation.” The various reasons the adult learners choose not to participate ranged from job related, family related, institutional, or dispositional related barriers.
Welfare …show more content…
Reform
A brief history of the welfare system will readily display that the program was not meant to perform as a government program designed to support the growing number of families that receive assistance.
The program “Aide to Dependent Children (ADC) was established by the Social Security Act of 1935. A grant program designed to provide welfare payment for needy children without parental support or care”. Before 1950 the money was specifically meant to care for the child. From 1950 to 1962 the federal government added funds that were to go toward the maintenance costs of a caretaker relative, an unemployed parent, and the name was changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children. “Welfare rolls peaked in 1994, reaching more than 5 million cases---14.2 million individual recipients. Before welfare reform, one child in seven received AFDC” Today the welfare program has shifted, transformed, balloon into a multi-faceted organization that has made it easier for unwed mothers to gain assistance when they have children.
The Problem of Welfare Recipients A potential problem that welfare recipients experience is the difficulty of juggling the requirements of finding a job that adequately provides enough to pay for the child care and the monthly living expenses. Finding child care while the mother is participates in some form of adult education is also extremely challenging. If there is not a nearly relative or friend that will help, professional child care services are difficult
to afford on a single parent budget and impossible without a grant or educational loan for a welfare recipient.
Welfare Reform Oversight The welfare reform law has not properly addressed the problem of how to provide a way for the individual on welfare to wean off government dependence through some form of educational assistance. This oversight will only continue to deny potential workers to gain the skills necessary to compete for skilled labor jobs in society. Adult educators recognized this fact and were prone to think that by not allowing for some sort of training program, this deficiency would undermine the full intent of welfare reform. “Some proponents of the law were requiring recipients take the first job available to them without allowing necessities as sufficient literary skills”. This allowed little chance for the welfare reform law to help head of households achieve self-sufficiency through long term employment.
This paper examined and explored the possibility of the single family female head of the household prospects of gaining an adult education in the United States . There will be a discussion on the barriers that family members see as preventing consideration of attending adult education classes. There was a look at the history of welfare reform and the effect the Welfare Reform bill had on families in general, and how the bill affected the possibility of single family female head of the household on gaining the necessary training to be self-sufficient.
References
(Beach & Tyrrel, 2012)Retrieve from http://search.proquest.com/docview/200348206?accountid=458
Dave, D. M., Corman, H., & Reichman, N. E. (2012). Effects of welfare reform on education acquisition of adult women. Journal of Labor Research, 33(2), 251-282. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12122-012-9130-4
Ntiri, D. W. (2000). The transition of female family heads of household from welfare to work: Implications for adult education. Western Journal of Black Studies, 24(1), 34-42.