Social Welfare Programs In The 1950's

By the 1950’s, America’s illusively plaid appearance was being disrupted by a growing multitude of problems: increasing visibility of poverty, rising frustrations from African American communities, and a growing angst concerning America’s position in the world. In response, the United States’ leaders sustained their constitutional promise to promote the general warfare of society, by confidently indorsing policies that directly attacked these problems-to the best of their ability. When President Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s successor, sworn into office, he believed in the active use of power and legislation. “Between 1963 and 1966, he compiled the most impressive legislative record of any president since Franklin Roosevelt” (Brinkley 784). Among

Arguably the most important of these was the Medicare program. This form of federal aid circumvented the stigma naturally given by welfare, by making all the benefits readily available to all elderly American’s regardless of need-shadowing the tactics of the Social Security program using pensions. (784) The program also allowed the medical community to charge normal fees by simply transferring the bill to the government instead of directly to the patient. This section of the New Society was an admirable example of how the United States has continued to try to uphold the constitution in their domestic

Although the roots of this movement date as far back as the 1900s, the legacy of the African American’s role in World War II sparked the catalyst needed to promote the legislation that eventually led to their equality. “On May 17, 1954, The Supreme Court announced its decision in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka” (Brinkley 772). This regulation overturned the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in the Plessy V Ferguson case. The separate but equal doctrine was a prime example of domestic policy that did not uphold the government’s constitutional promise to promote the general welfare of society-to include all that fall under the definition of an American citizen. The affliction put on children who had to travel to segregated public schools placed an unequal burden and damage done to those who it pertained to. Brinkley depicts the opinion of Chief Justice Earl warren as he restated his words, “we conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”