Why Was Welfare Established In The 1930s Essay

1. Why was welfare established in the 1930s?

Welfare was established in the 1930’s as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. During the Great Depression, local and state governments as well as private charities were overwhelmed by needy families seeking shelter, food, and clothing. In 1935, welfare for poor children and other dependent persons became the responsibility of the federal government. To deal with the depression, The Social Security Act of 1935 established a safety net for less fortunate Americans, and also created a program to assist some of the nation’s poor. One of which used to be called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). This program went on to become the main support for needy, one parent families.

Today many women work, so welfare reformers adopt this value into welfare programs. Requiring welfare recipients to work for benefits gives people hope and opportunity, and gives them a chance to work. Everybody can do something and should be expected to do something, even if it is menial work, in order to get their pay, so that there’s a connection to the state sending them money to be able to do something to earn that money. The public wants welfare recipients, who are able to work, to take jobs, and the public wants welfare recipients who can’t find jobs to work at jobs that the state provides in welfare-to-work programs, and require everybody to do something for their pay. The biggest problem with requiring welfare recipients to work is there’s no new money for job placement, employment education, and job training. If there is no new money put into the welfare system, the states are not going to be able to run the programs any better than they already are. The state of Wisconsin’s W2 program invested millions of dollars to support the kind of envisioned welfare reform. Money to get poor people to the jobs they’re required to find, money for health care, money for day care because single mothers cannot leave their young children home alone while they work, and money for job skills training, which welfare recipients need to find work in a competitive market.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) bill changed the structure of welfare payments and added new criteria to states that received welfare funding. PRWORA provided that each state would receive a fixed amount of money to run its own welfare programs, people on welfare would have to find work within two years or lose all their benefits, and there would be a lifetime maximum of five years on welfare. The bill also provided for training, child care, and health care in exchange for an agreement to find work. The bill changed the name of welfare from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). AFDC and the jobs program ceased to exist under this law; instead Washington will give a flat amount of money to each state over the next five years and let them devise their own programs for the needy. Welfare itself is no longer a federal entitlement. The effects of the 1996 welfare reform bill dramatically reduced the percentage of people receiving welfare benefits. Today, the benefits are small and declining. The number of families receiving aid has declined, and the recipient families collect an average of $363 monthly in TANF benefits. Under PRWORA, states are not required to provide assistance to everyone who applies. Some states will try to