In the year 1996, when Bill Clinton was President, Clinton signed a welfare reform bill, which the last two versions he had vetoed.. One of the key aspects of the bill is that the poor are guaranteed to obtain food stamps and that the national standards are still met. President Clinton also succeeded in increasing daycare support for the children of welfare recipients. Lastly, Clinton assured that Medicaid coverage would still be available. Congress had wanted States to do whatever they wanted with these things listed, if not cut entirely. However, Congress did succeed in some areas. Even though food stamps stayed the funds were severely cut. Over six years the funds had to be cut by $28 billion, plus an additional $3 billion was cut by not …show more content…
My household was previously only my dad, mom, two brothers, and myself. However, in 2000 my aunt went to jail for substance abuse and my three cousins were put under the guardianship of my mother. My aunt had been receiving welfare and food stamps before she lost guardianship and when my mother got another three kids my dad and her receive food stamps, a monthly stipend, and daycare support. At that time my father was the only one working and gaining an income so thanks to those social services we wouldn’t have had the resources to care for them. Without the help my parents would have to take care of three pre-teens and three toddlers on one income. Infact, without the help my mom would have had to get a job which would leave the youngest of us in the care of my older brothers since we wouldn’t have been able to afford daycare. And, if we were raised without my mom we wouldn’t have learned all the manners and morals we were raised with. When my cousins’ came to live with us they were used to an environment that contained drugs and gangs so my mom taught them different and better ways. Having them there affected me because that was the time that I learned that there was bad stuff out there in the world. It was then I learned what a cuss word was and that is was bad because my mom would punish my older cousin when he would say them. Having my cousins there taught me what things were bad but if my mom wasn’t there because she
There have been numerous debates within the last decade over what needs to be done about welfare and what is the best welfare reform plan. In the mid-1990s the TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act was proposed under the Clinton administration. This plan was not received well since it had put a five year lifetime limit on receiving welfare and did not supply the necessary accommodations to help people in poverty follow this guideline. Under the impression that people could easily have found a job and worked their way out of poverty in five years, the plan was passed in 1996 and people in poverty were immediately forced to start looking for jobs. When the TANF Act was up for renewal earlier this year, the Bush administration carefully looked at what the TANF Act had done for the poverty stricken. Bush realized that, in his opinion, the plan had been successful and should stay in effect with some minor tweaking. Bush proposed a similar plan which kept the five year welfare restriction in place but did raise the budgeted amount of money to be placed towards childcare and food stamps. Both the TANF Act and Bush's revised bill have caused a huge controversy between liberal and conservative activists. The liberals feel that it is cruel to put people in a situation where they can no longer receive help from the government since so many people can not simply go out and get a job and work their way out of poverty. They feel if finding a job was that easy, most people would have already worked their way out of poverty. The conservatives feel that the plans, such as the TANF Act, are a surefire way to lower poverty levels and unemployment rates as well as decrease the amount o...
In the summer of 1996, Congress finally passed and the President signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996", transforming the nation's welfare system. The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act sets the stage for ongoing reconstruction of welfare systems on a state-by-state basis. The combined programs will increase from nearly $100 billion this year to $130 billion per year in 6 years. Programs included are for food stamps, SSI, child nutrition, foster care, the bloss grant program for child- care, and the new block grant to take the place of AFDC. All of those programs will seek $700 billion over the next 6 years, from the taxpayers of America. This program in its reformed mode will cost $55 billion less than it was assumed to cost if there were no changes and the entitlements were left alone. The current welfare system has failed the very families it was intended to serve. If the present welfare system was working so well we would not be here today.
Do you believe that food stamps are a drag to our economy, or the answer to its problems? Food stamps today are so controversial to the following question, “do they really benefit people who are in need of aid, or people who are too lazy to work?” Food stamps can seem like one of these, or both. Each side to the question has extraordinary points of why food stamps they are good, or bad. Food stamps are needed to feed millions of families in America and the world, but they are mistreated by some people who are lazy and would rather take a government check for the rest of their lives instead of work. Even though food stamps raises the unemployment and obesity rates rate and obesity, theyit still aids people who can not afford themit and
Jeff Grogger, Lynn A. Karoly, Jeff Grogger. Welfare Reform: Effects of a Decade of Change. New York: Harvard University Press, 2005.
In today’s America, there are many people who would either be disgusted at the very mention of Welfare or be highly grateful for its existence. I believe that in order for welfare to be more effective in America, there must be reform. From the time of its inceptions in 1935, welfare has lent a helping hand to many in crisis (Constitution Rights Foundation). However, at present many programs within the system are being abused and the people who are in real need are being cheated out of assistance. The year after the creation of welfare unemployment was just about twenty percent (Unemployment Statistics). The need for basic resources to survive was unparallel. Today, many people face the same needs as many did during the 30s. Some issues with
It is a commonly known fact that a large percentage of Americans are living on and relying on welfare, which is a government program that provides financial aid to individuals or groups of people who cannot support themselves. Welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. There are several types of assistance offered by the government, which include healthcare, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing assistance. The type of welfare and amounts given depend on the individual, and how many children they have. There are many people who honestly need the government assistance, but there are also many who abuse the privilege.
Welfare programs are an important part of American society. Without any type of American welfare, people will starve, children will not receive the proper education, and people will not receive any medical help simply because they do not have the resources available to them. Each of the three aspects of the American welfare system are unique in their own ways because they are funded differently and the benefits are given to different people. While support for these welfare systems has declined in the more recent years, the support for it when it was created was strong.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, beginning this year Medicaid will expand eligibility to include all uninsured individuals under the age of 65 whose incomes fall at or below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, or about $32,500 for a family of four. However, the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law also allowed states more flexibility concerning what parts of the ACA they can implement and said that those same states would not lose federal funding for their existing programs. This result would leave the decision to opt out of the law's provision into the hands of state legislators. While twenty-six states have chosen to expand healthcare coverage, twenty-one states have not and four have yet to make a decision. The state of Florida is among those not seeking to expand coverage and that decision alone could cost Florida millions of dollars a year in tax penalties. As conservative and liberal state lawmakers square off into a maelstrom of debate over whether Medicaid should cover more people, thousands of uninsured Floridians will be caught in the crossfire.
In recent years, the number of Americans who are uninsured has reached over 45 million citizens, with millions more who only have the very basic of insurance, effectively under insured. With the growing budget cuts to medicaid and the decreasing amount of employers cutting back on their health insurance options, more and more americans are put into positions with poor health care or no access to it at all. At the heart of the issue stems two roots, one concerning the morality of universal health care and the other concerning the economic effects. Many believe that health care reform at a national level is impossible or impractical, and so for too long now our citizens have stood by as our flawed health-care system has transformed into an unfixable mess. The good that universal healthcare would bring to our nation far outweighs the bad, however, so, sooner rather than later, it is important for us to strive towards a society where all people have access to healthcare.
As of 2012, roughly thirty five percent of the population in the United States was living with some sort of government assistance. The Welfare Reform Act was passed into law in 1996. Many of the country’s leaders promised to end welfare with this act. (“Welfare Reform”) This act ended the legal entitlement to welfare benefits. The bill also created time limits and work requirements for participation in the program. Welfare in the United States should be reformed because reform decreases poverty, increases independence in the country’s citizens, and increases the quality of life for former welfare recipients.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed by President Barack Obama is a significant change of the American healthcare system since insurance plans programs like Medicare and Medicaid (“Introduction to”). As a result, “It is also one of the most hotly contested, publicly maligned, and politically divisive pieces of legislation the country has ever seen” (“Introduction to”). The Affordable Care Act should be changed because it grants the government too much control over the citizen’s healthcare or the lack of individual freedom to choose affordable health insurance.
Welfare has been a safety net for many Americans, when the alternative for them is going without food and shelter. Over the years, the government has provided income for the unemployed, food assistance for the hungry, and health care for the poor. The federal government in the nineteenth century started to provide minimal benefits for the poor. During the twentieth century the United States federal government established a more substantial welfare system to help Americans when they most needed it. In 1996, welfare reform occurred under President Bill Clinton and it significantly changed the structure of welfare. Social Security has gone through significant change from FDR’s signing of the program into law to President George W. Bush’s proposal of privatized accounts.
While humans have for generations acknowledged the importance of children in the society, the government involvement in child affairs has been varied over the decades. In the US, the government did not play a major role in the promotion of the welfare of children and youth in the country by the end of the 19th century. This trend changed in the early years of the 20th century when the federal government started to demonstrate a major interest in child welfare. This took place in the progressive era which saw the immergence and active engagement of the child-savers movement. Owing to the efforts of such organizations, several policies and legislations were worked on by the US government from the start of the 20th century to promote child welfare in the society (McGowan, 2005). The marked shift by the government in social welfare was caused by some important economic and social issues that were taking place in the progressive era.
Like all living things, humans require energy in order to perform basic bodily functions and to live out the events in their everyday life. We obtain this energy from the many different types of food that we eat, and it is necessary in or der to live out a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, food is one of the most expensive items we have to pay for throughout our life, and the prices of many foods are increasing—especially those that are most nutritious. With many job loss out in the world today some people might not even be able to find a well-paying job. As a result of this, many people in the lower class are struggling to provide the food necessary for not only themselves, but for their families as well. With low paying jobs that people have
Less than a quarter of uninsured Americans believe the Affordable Care Act is a good idea. According to experts, more than 87 million Americans could lose their current health care plan under the Affordable Care Act. This seems to provide enough evidence that the Affordable Care Act is doing the exact opposite of what Democrats promised it would do. On the other hand, this law includes the largest health care tax cut in history for middle class families, helping to make insurance much more affordable for millions of families. The Affordable Care Act has been widely discussed and debated, but remains widely misunderstood.