Abstract Although the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a sufficient number of its citizens are living below the poverty line. The paper looks at programs that aid families in financial need and examines whether they do enough to assist needy families. The paper discusses the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANSF), the Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), Section 8 Housing and Medicaid. The paper asserts that all the social welfare programs which the United States provides do little to offer genuine opportunity to America's poor to escape poverty. Instead, they usually shift families and especially women and children from being poor and on welfare to being a member of the working poor.
From the Paper "Ruth Brandwein, director of the Social Justice Center, illustrates just how severe the problem of poverty is for American families in her 2003 article entitled "It's Getting Worse for Poor Families." She states that the poverty level seems to be increasing in recent years with 12.4 percent of the population living in poverty, which is almost 38 million people. "The increase in children under 5 living in poverty increased to 19.8 percent" (Brandwein, p. 1). The article discusses the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) , which "provides temporary financial assistance for pregnant women and families with one or more dependent children."
