PUA 440 Case Study 3: Welfare To Work

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Running Head: Case Study 3
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Case Study 3: Welfare to Work
UNLV
PUA 440

Case Study 3
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Define the Issue
Public welfare, while available prior to the 1930s, had very little government involvement. “States were not involved at all until the 1920s and then in only a very minor way”
(Stephens and Wikstrom, 161). Even after the New Deal programs of the 1930s, most welfare was passed through directly to the local governments, rather than have the state decide what funds went where. The issue with federal funds for welfare started with the Aid to Families with
Dependent Children, or the AFDC. The AFDC had issues with “the fact that federal entitlement was synonymous with lifelong dependency and lack of responsibility on the part of the
recipients. …show more content…

“Some who had been successful found themselves unemployed with no benefits
(Stephens and Wikstrom 164). Another issue was the fact that while some people were able to maintain their lifestyle up to that point, the minimum wage which was at that time, $5.15 per hour had not been increased between 1997 and 2005. This did not help the low-income families as during this period “…consumer prices have increased between 19 and 20 percent, meaning purchasing power of the dollar received by minimum wage workers has declines significantly”
(164). One final issue that helped to turn the success of the Work to Welfare program was the fact that increases in regressive tax and sales tax, as well as state and federal government fees
“fell heavily on those at the bottom of the income scale.”
Conclusion
Due to the economic setbacks of the early 2000s, local revenue was down which led to many states decreasing many of the “supplemental work programs” that supported TANF and the Work to Welfare program up until that time.There were many states that had used all of their surpluses they were able to save in the 1990s which also led to more cutbacks in the federal grants-in-aid to state, local and other federal domestic programs. Because of the cutbacks,