Welfare and Families in the US: Changes and Reform

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Welfare and Families in the US:

Changes and Reform

Welfare is defined by Wikipedia as the provision of a minimal level of well-being and social support for all citizens, sometimes referred to as public aid. In most developed countries welfare is largely provided by the government, and to a lesser extent, charities, informal social groups, religious groups, and inter-governmental organizations. (22 Apr. 14) In the US, we have a welfare system that started in 1935 by President Franklin D Roosevelt. The welfare system that we know today has gone through many changes and reforms.

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt called a White House conference on how to best deal with the problem of poor single mothers and their children. The conference declared that preserving the family in the home was preferable to placing the poor in institutions, which were widely criticized as costly failures. (www.crf-usa.org 22 Apr. 14). This was one of the first steps to a national welfare program. During World War 1 in 1914, men went off to war and women worked. When the war ended and the men came home, women stopped working. The Great Depression hit in the 1930s, leaving families devastated financially. Women were widowed from the war. They had children and left without a way to take care of their families. Children went from laborers to being looked at as dependents. Looking at this financial hard time for families, President Franklin D. Roosevelt birthed the Social Security Act in 1935. (Lecture, Spring 2014).

During World War 2, men went off to war again and women again went off to work. This time however, when the war ended in 1945, the women stayed in their jobs. Women were now part of the workforce and the need for childcare was now...

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...full of negative and false stereotypes.

Works Cited

http://nwcitizen.us/oldsite/usa/welfare-reform.html

"1996 Welfare Reform Facts." 1996 Welfare Reform Facts. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbenefitprograms/a/welfarereform.htm

"Your Assumptions About Welfare Recipients Are Wrong." ThinkProgress RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/18/3081791/welfare-recipient-spending/

"CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATION Bill of Rights in Action." BRIA 14 3 a How Welfare Began in the United States. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-14-3-a-how-welfare-began-in-the-united-states.html

Stein, Gary. "Where Are All the Couch Potatoes and Welfare Queens?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.

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