Explain How Welfare Became A Dirty Word

How “Welfare” Became a Dirty Word

In order to effectively describe how welfare became a dirty word, there are some significant aspects I must first discuss. Welfare was once associated with enhancing the lives of society through social programs. When Roosevelt passed the Social Security Act of 1935 women were removed from the workforce to make more jobs available for men. The standard expectation was that the husband would financially support his wife. The unmarried women and those abandoned by men received assistance from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). In this post, I will discuss the three main reasons how welfare became a dirty word. First, I will discuss how women reentering the workforce caused the roles and expectations of them to change and how it stigmatized welfare recipients. Second, I will discuss the effects of

As a result, the women who remained home on AFDC were stigmatized as lazy. Although, AFDC was intended to serve the most deserving needy which was helpless women left alone with children. This left some women confused because the same government that removed them from the workforce, put them on AFDC and told them to stay home was now labeling them as unworthy and immoral. These women were not offered any transitional assistance from welfare back into the workforce such as job training, daycare, or child care assistance. The economy was still hurting, and jobs were still scarce. Instead of blaming them solely for their situation the men who fathered their children should have also been held accountable as well as the government. Many of these women had jobs that were involuntarily taken away from them. Some of these women were not single parents by choice but abandoned and their children rejected by unscrupulous