The Welfare System

Paper Summary:

This paper describes the beginnings of the American welfare system and how it evolved over time into the network of welfare programs operating today. The paper also describes the purpose of the welfare system as well as some of the welfare programs that are available today to American citizens. Additionally, the paper looks at whether the present welfare system in the U.S. is achieving its objective of helping the poor and most vulnerable in society or whether it is failing to meet that objective.

From the Paper:

"Until the nineteenth century, many people lived in large extended families, including grandparents, cousins, and other relatives, that worked together for generations of family farms, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, countries around the world shifted from primarily agrarian to primarily industrial economies, and during the late twentieth century, some of these nations shifted again and became primarily postindustrial, or service and information based, economies (Welfare pp). The tradition of large families living together began to disappear, and many began living in smaller families, consisting of only married couples and their children (Welfare pp). Moreover, the industrial and postindustrial jobs often depend on flexible and mobile workers, thus many people have to commute long distances from home to work, and may even have to relocate (Welfare pp). The majority of people in developed nations today have completely separate family and work lives because small, flexible families are better suited to these types of work patterns, however, small families do not provide the kind of social support that extended families do, and in addition, single-parent households provide even less support than the typical nuclear families (Welfare pp)."

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