The book I chose to write my paper on is Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform by Sharon Hays. In the book, the author looks at the welfare reform act enacted in 1996, known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. . She examines both the positive and negative effects that the Act has had on the poor as well as the effects it has had on society overall. In her research, she spent over 600 hours in welfare offices, speaking to caseworkers, social workers, and welfare recipients and potential recipients themselves. She learned first hand how the Act affected the day to lives of poor women and their families, as well as how it affected the caseworkers who not only had to learn the large number of new rules and regulations required by the Act, but also had to deal on a day to day basis with the repercussions these changes had on the lives of their clients. Hays found that initially most welfare workers were optimistic and even excited about the changes. Most workers felt that the Act represented real progress and allowed for positive changes which would positively impact the lives of their clients. Hays spoke to one welfare who said that welfare reform “offered the training and services necessary to 'make our clients' lives better, to make them better mothers, to make them more productive.'” But as she was soon to find out, welfare reform, while it did have a positive impact on the lives of some welfare clients, made the lives of most clients more difficult, not to mention the stress that it caused for the welfare workers who had to deal with the often confusing and illogical new rules. The book deals with several sociological issues. It focuses on poverty, as well as s... ... middle of paper ... ...ichael Sauder. New York. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. Collins, P. (1993) Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection. Inequality and Society from Social Science Perspectives on Social Stratification by J. Manza and M. Sauder. New York. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. Federman, M. et al. What Does it Mean to be Poor in America? 1996 (2009). Pp. 296-310 in Inequality and Society: Social Science Perspectives on Social Stratification by Jeff Manza and Michael Sauder. New York. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. Hays, Sharon. (2003). Flat Broke With Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. New York. Oxford University Press, Inc. Krugman, Paul. ([2007] 2009). “The Great Divergence”. Pp. 943-959 in Inequality and Society: Social Science Perspectives on Social Stratification by Jeff Manza and Michael Sauder. New York. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
Issitt, Micah, L. Flynn. "Welfare: An Overview." Points Of View: Welfare (2013): 1. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 5 Jan. 2014.
Linda Gordon's article is thoughtful, insightful and highly relevant. As governments slash poverty relief programs at all levels and as welfare-bashing reaches an all-time high, it is instructive to take a step back and look at how the current system developed.
The whole point of this essay is my way of showing the reader using Grunwald’s cites and examples like the personal experiences, Facts and Statistics, and the repetition Grunwald shows that the word welfare has another meaning, the real and true meaning. So the next time you rethink about should you apply for that benefit program or should you inform your friend or cousin about welfare. Do them or yourself a favor and just do it because after reading what I have to say welfare it will always pop up in the back of your head when a person talks about have a bad life or money problems I guarantee
For her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich, a middle-aged female investigative journalist, assumed the undercover position of a newly divorced housewife returning to work after several years of unemployment. The premise for Ehrenreich to go undercover in this way was due to her belief that a single mother returning to work after years of being on welfare would have a difficult time providing for her family on a low or minimum wage. Her cover story was the closest she could get to that of a welfare mother since she had no children and was not on welfare. During the time she developed the idea for the book, “roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform” were going to have to survive on a $6 or $7 an hour wage; the wage of the inexperienced and uneducated. This paper will discuss Ehrenreich's approach to the research, her discoveries, and the economic assumptions we can make based on the information presented in her book.
The first part of the moral prescriptions described in Flat Broke With Children is the Work Plan/Family Plan that is an important part of Welfare reform. (Hays, 23) The Work Plan and the Family Plan are two different means of getting people out of Welfare that contradict themselves at times. The Work Plan and Family Plan have completely different moral goals in the end so it makes sense that they would contradict. The Work Plan is aimed to get women jobs and the Family Plan is aimed to bring families together and extort money from fathers who have abandoned their children. The Work Plan values independence and productivity while the Family Plan values community and commitment to others. (Hays, 23) Bot...
The article “Back At Square One’: As States Repurpose Welfare Funds, More Families Fall Through Safety Net” was written by Peter S. Goodman. The article is about the struggle that people have all over the United States. Many of these individuals struggle to provide food, a decent place to live, and other common standards of living to their families. Goodman writes of a few women but mainly focuses on a woman named Brianna Butler who is struggling. In the reading there are many struggles she faces such as getting funding and getting help. Her major dilemma is that in order to receive financial assistance she needs to attend a four-week class, but no one will watch her child so she cannot go to the classes, so she does not receive the money. According to the article There are thousands of people who experience daily strife and when the United States economy experienced trouble many businesses had to lay people off and this created an even
Poverty in America is a very complex issue that can be looked at from many directions. There are a plethora of statistics and theories about poverty in America that can be confusing and at times contradicting. It is important to objectively view statistics to gain a better understanding of poverty and to wade through the stereotypes and the haze of cultural views that can misrepresent the situation.The official poverty line in America begins with a person making at or below $12,060. To calculate the poverty line for a family, an additional $4,180 is added to the base of $12,060 for each additional member(“Federal Poverty Level Guidelines”). According to the last U.S. census, over 45 million or 14.5% of Americans are at or below the poverty line(Worstall). At this level, the U.S. poverty level has not changed much from the 1970s when the government began a “War on Poverty.” However,
Morrison , B. (2011). Innocent: Confession of a Welfare Mother . (1st ed.). Baltimore,MD: Apprentice House
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
From the humble beginning of Social Work there have been many people who have tirelessly worked, fought, and dedicated their life advocating for the people in our world who are disadvantaged. Furthermore, many of these people have been women who not only were strong enough to fight for the rights of others, but also had to fight the forces whom thought that women where in some way second hand citizens themselves. These women were brave and determined enough to break out of the box that society placed them in, and stand up for the social injustices that they seen taking place, and try to make a difference. Of the many women from the early days of Social Work none fought harder for social reform than Grace Abbott. Grace Abbott spent her life fighting to enact legislation for the betterment of society as a whole. This work would eventually earn her the nickname “the mother of America’s forty-three million children.”
Karen Bridget Murray’s article, “Governing ‘Unwed Mothers’ in Toronto at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”, is a valuable reference into the struggles and triumphs of social welfare for unwed mothers. For me the article highlighted how government ideologies influence social welfare, how important the change from religious reformers practices to social work was and finally how appalling it is that the struggles and barriers these women faced are still relevant to single mothers today.
Shipler, David K. The Working Poor: Invisible in America (Vintage). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2008.
The first detail I noticed while watching the documentary was that almost all of the participants were either employed with a minimum wage job or attempting to get work. Welfare participants in the media typically are portrayed as lazy or as using the system. However, Abbey and Valentina were doing minimum wage work and they were both still in need of financial assistance. Teresa was on welfare as well but she had lose her job years prior and had not been able to find another one for , which was out of er control. Iyoka choose a school program over the work program, she was able to get a better paying job. However she herself was still financially strained because her husband was not able to find stable work. I notice this same problem still exist today with many individuals needing more financial support for a longer period of time. Although the minimum wage has been increasing, the cost of living
Being a kid that lived on the west side or the “bad” side of town I did not really understand why people were so upset about the change until myself and all my friends from school entered the school of the “other” kids. It was made very apparent to us that we were not welcomed, that we were all dirty and that is when I realized my family was “poor”. I remember many of us trying to blend in as much as possible, not talking about our previous school or what side of town we lived on. It became even more clear the old I got and the more vocal others became toward those in my social class and the assumptions made of those that live on the west side of town. The stereotypes about people that need government assistance to survive their daily lives have dated back to the colonial days of America. However, the ‘most significant example of the stereotype comes from Susan Sheehan’s article, “A Welfare Mother,”’ (Coughlin, 1989, p. 83) this story is of a women that cheats the system in various ways thus creating the stereotype that now follows all of those that are in need of assistance. This stereotype has followed me throughout my entire life and it still follows me today. It is what drives me every day to work as hard as I can to break through the stereotypes, to show that just because someone is a victim of circumstance is does not mean that they should not be given the same opportunities as everyone
Social issues are problems in the society today that are described as wrong, widespread and changeable. A category of conditions that people believe need to be changed. Poverty is a serious social issue in the society today. According to Peilin (2012), poverty brings hardships to families and individuals as well as political thereby negatively affecting the social stability and social development and posing a severe threat to human security (p. 243). This paper focuses on poverty as a social issue in today’s society. First, it gives a succinct introduction of the social issue, and then describes how it fits into the field of sociology. It also evaluates the sociological theories and terminology that relate to the social issue. The section that follows evaluates what is known and unknown about the particular social issue. This is followed by a discussion regarding the value of sociological research into the issue determining the available or possible practical implications of the sociological inquiry. The information presented here is strongly supported by the concepts and theories derived from reliable sources.