Amongst the arguments that social welfare works and helps society is that it benefits disenfranchised Americans and children as well as benefits society as a whole. Underlying this entire statement is the main argument that welfare helps a variety of American citizens. Social welfare programs benefit elderly, disabled, workers, unemployed, impoverished, and the general public. Aside from social security benefitting retired people, social programs that protect workers rights, food stamps to ensure impoverished individuals and families don’t starve, programs protecting disabled individual’s interest, programs for domestic abuse survivors, programs for the rehabilitation of criminals and addicts, and temporary assistance for individuals who only …show more content…
When children grow up in poverty they are more at risk for mental health problems, being uneducated, living in poverty as an adult, and having children before the age of 20 (Child Poverty, NCCP). Welfare helps to bring families out of poverty and aids working parents, which in turn helps children who have no ability to increase the earning of their household and did nothing more to be impoverished than be born. Welfare focuses on “equali[zing] resources, those things that people are not responsible for” (Roemer). Economic disparities are often catalysts for further economic disparities; someone whose income is eaten up by living expenses will never be able to “rise” because while the rest of the economy is being dictated by those who have money to indulge and the majority, these individuals can only provide for the basic necessities and are spending all their time and energy planning, sacrificing, and working to do so (Roemer). This process in turn creates a void between the ‘have’ and the ‘have nots’, but welfare serves to narrow those gaps and put more money into the pockets of the ‘have nots’ so they can have the opportunity to get