Welfare Reform

Welfare and welfare reform has been a hot topic amongst politicians and their constituents for years. Feeling the pressure brought on by people crying out for welfare reform President Clinton brought about some changes in our welfare system. Prior to President Clinton’s sweeping reforms this is not the first time that the whole idea of welfare has come under fire; former California governor Wilson, was a strong opponent of welfare. It was he, along with many other people, which really were the ones to spark the welfare reform that President Clinton enacted. These people believed that welfare does not solve anything, it is just letting people become reliant on the government; sucking up money and valuable resources that could be spent elsewhere. For the purpose of this paper if we could just for a moment focus on how President Clinton’s welfare reform policies affect single African-American adolescent mothers.

Despite the multimillion-dollar campaign to educate adolescents on the risks of pre-marital sexual relationships the earlier portion of this decade has seen a dramatic increase in teen pregnancies, there for causing a missive economic backlash that can be felt in everyone’s back pocket. Only now in the past few years has the number of teen pregnancies gone down, in fact in 1997 the number of teen-pregnancies reached an all time low, that quickly started to raise yet again. According to a study in the late 1980’s black adolescents are more likely to become early parents than whites and other ethnic groups. According to that study 14% of adolescents are African-American female; and out all adolescents that have given birth 30% are African-American. It also show that half of all unmarried adolescent mothers are African-American. The study also yields that 40% of all first births of blacks are to teen-age parents; in comparison to the 20% of white teenage parents. “Teenage pregnancy can have significant negative social and economic consequences. Notably, about 40% of teenage pregnancies end in abortion, which is a costly both personal and financial terms and is viewed as morally objectionable by many in our society. The remaining 60% of teenagers that give birth face challenges in maintaining their social lives, achieving higher educational levels and obtaining successful employment.”1

Social scientists have found that childbirth exacerbates the problems ...

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...ilies, the unemployed, and so on. Welfare should only be given to those whose life depends on it, it should be given for only a limited time and only once in an individuals life. If we enact my proposed limitation then we can save millions of dollars, and that can be redirected to other programs. My third and final conclusion is that with the entire going on in this country we have loss sight of our basic unit of society, our families. We have become to warped up in the worlds business that we are forgetting about what is happening back home. We should be more concerned about our youths then the bombing of Kosovo or keeping an embargo on Iraq. The family is at the center of all societies. If this country started to promote family values then there would not have all the problems that occur with single mothers. I know that it is hard in a country whose leader has been known for having an affair, but still we must try. We must start to promote good moral values that do not look lightly on teen pregnancy. On the topic of welfare, I think that even more massive welfare reform is on its way in the near future. There’re just too many problems, problems that we cannot afford to overlook.