Preview

Welfare Reform Ideas

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
841 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Welfare Reform Ideas
Welfare Reform
Many people do not know all of the welfare services that are provide by the United States. The most common forms of welfare that people know about are food stamps and child support. When really there is actually a fairly large list of welfare services provided. These services include cash assistance, the child support program, child care, energy or utility assistance, food assistance, medical assistance, vocational rehabilitation services. In 1996 President Bill Clinton decided that the welfare system needed to be changed or reformed in order to fit the current times. Before 1996 the welfare system had its flaws which was often abused by people for example people did not feel the need to get an actual job because they knew that the US Government would continue to provide them with money. President
Clinton said “this is the end of welfare as we know it” before making the final changes on March
29,1996. The purpose of the reform was to make people on welfare less dependent on the government and help them gain more self efficiency along with reducing the overall number of people on welfare.
One of the biggest changes made were that no recipient could have more than five years of assistance cumulatively causing more people to need to get up and do everything in their power to get off of welfare. The requirements for applying to get welfare were also changed. Some of these things were changed for the new welfare; dependant children must be living in the household, all minors must be attending school during school days, all minors and dependants must be fully and appropriately immunized, you must be a legal and permanent resident of the state to which you are applying. The outcome of the reform proved to be a good idea.
The reform had many positive outcomes; for example the child poverty rates went down along

with teen pregnancies. Also with those rates going down nearly 1 million people were kicked off for

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The original idea of the United States Social Welfare System that was prompted in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, was that it would be a temporary program used to help those who recently became unemployed to get back on their feet. In a recent article by Hope yen of the Huffington Post, "Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream." If you look at it more closely 114.8 million families as of 2010 depend on welfare compared to 4.5 million families in 1996. The United States government should restructure the existing qualifications and regulations for any current and future dependents seeking assistance from government-funded programs due to the increasingly high rate of chemical dependency, financial instability, and fraud within the programs.…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Another key idea was to reduce the role of the welfare state in peoples lives and promote the idea of individualism rather than relying on government aid. This lead to more money being saved and allowing tax cuts.…

    • 1452 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In 1996 President Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it.” Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Reform Act replaced the federal program of Aid to Dependent Children, later known as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). After 1970, liberals, moderates, and even welfare recipients began to join conservatives in denouncing welfare in general, and AFDC in particular. The discussions tended to accuse AFDC of breaking up the family, fostering a rise in illegitimacy, and stimulating dependency, although the evidence of this was sometimes ambiguous (Grabner). By the 1990s programs like AFDC has proved to be vulnerable, and during the 1994 elections President Clinton was forced to give up the program to get re-elected. The program only shows another flaw in the system, and Clinton tried to mend it. As a result, Congress passed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996. The law ended AFDC which in turn limited single mothers their independence that the program had given them before, and it required work for temporary relief. During the course of the Clinton presidency the national poverty rate dropped tremendously by a quarter, and welfare caseloads plummeted by 60 percent. Welfare was now controlled by the states rather the federal…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Welfare Reform Act is better known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, this was created by former President Clinton. Clinton vowed to stop welfare, he wanted it to be someone’s right not just a privilege to receive aid. Clinton wanted to help the needy people who actually needed help, but many people were angry with the changes that it made. Clinton did not think that people’s reactions would be so negative, but they were. Medicaid did not change the way that they it provides coverage to members, but it changed how many people it covered. Clinton did not want to continue seeing his country become dependent on the assistance, he wanted to increase the employment rate. There were too many children that were living in poverty and Clinton seen a cycle that he knew he had to break.…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The next time welfare would be addressed was at the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time when the United States Stock market crashed. The Stock Market crashed on the day October 29th, 1929; otherwise known…

    • 1965 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a bill turning control of the welfare system over to the individual states. Thus, allowing states to choose their…

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bill Clinton's second term likewise saw the execution of clearing welfare change, satisfying a crusade guarantee 'to end welfare as we probably am aware it.' He marked into law a moderate policy to move numerous welfare beneficiaries into the workforce and force more breaking points on advantages, for example, residency necessities. The new welfare program supplanted most direct government gifts with an arrangement of piece stipends managed at the state level.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good 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

    more jobs. However, many people who are on welfare have become so used to it, and instead of using…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    government programs such as welfare, the money they are paid often is simply not enough to…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Safeguarding Legislation

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Moved emphasis on parental role from having rights over children to having a responsibility to their children.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The welfare reform proposal was an emotional battle as it suggested cutting funding to welfare programs. There was an ideological split between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats argued that that government assistance programs can alleviate poverty. The Republicans believed that the current welfare system created dependency, illegitimacy, and more poverty. The main aspects of change in the welfare reform bill were: turning over welfare funds to the states, imposing a five year time limit on benefits, and requiring recipients to go to work within two year or sooner.…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Finding accurate information for welfare recipients and the law has differed in many states. Most discoveries on the effect on this have affected people all over the world. The welfare benefits are still a federal entitlement for families as long as needed. As of recently there are 24 states that have imposed the 60 month time limit that will terminate benefits. There are nineteen other states including Florida that are imposing shorter time limits then 60 months. There have been discoveries that California and New York have extended the sixty month time limit. There are an estimated 19 million families receiving the welfare benefits 52% in which were subject to the time limit 44% were exempt from the time limit. There are families who are upset with the time limit . They cannot afford to buy food to feed their families. People cannot afford to get medical insurance to take care of their sick children. The economy has affected everyone in a devastating way. The government put a target on most states to take the benefits away from families who are not willing to change their situations. Many people are in fear if they lose their jobs how will they…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Welfare Reform

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages

    families. If the said parent fails to find a job or exceed their five year…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, with new people in government the trends were reversed and policies were aimed at individual responsibility instead of relying on the government. Federal legislation transferred more of the responsibility of welfare programs to the states instead of the federal government. ”This approach involved privatization, a policy that transfers control from government to private enterprise that allocated public funds to private profit-making or nonprofit entities that then provide benefits or services” (Chapin, 2014, p.96). The idea was that by cutting social programs and reinvesting tax dollars it would increase economic growth, however, the programs that were affected were for people with low-income.…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays