Summary of the Work by Sharon Hays
Sharon Hays, in her work “Flat Broke with Children,” focuses on the problem of single mothers’ welfare and social status with references to the modern welfare reform in the country and its impacts on the persons’ wellbeing. In the work, Hays refers to the Personal Responsibility Act or the welfare reform along with discussing the real-life cases to analyze the role of the reform for changing the situation within the society.
The author’s discussion is based on the detailed analysis of the single mothers’ cases about the role of welfare reform in their lives. Thus, Hays refers to the situations in the lives of Celia, Sally, Monique, and the other women who had to apply for receiving financial assistance according to the welfare program because of the impossibility to cover rent and child care costs with their earnings. The author states that the new welfare reform is rather imperfect to change the situation for the better immediately that is why the results associated with the discussed cases are different.
There are many conditions, which should be followed to participate in the program, as a result, the effects of the welfare reform can be rather negative for those women who suffer from poor living conditions but have no right to participate in the program. The importance of the article written by Hays is in the fact that the author builds the argument with references to real-life cases and evidence to provide sufficient support for the main idea.
To generalize the points of the article, it is necessary to pay attention to the role of welfare in the development of a family and to the social issue of increasing the number of families who have difficulties with covering the child care costs because of their material status. Thus, the material status is important for the effective development of a family, and this question becomes more crucial when it is discussed with references to mothers and their social status. Despite changes in the welfare programs, many mothers remain to be the victims of the situation when they have no money to care for children and to participate in the program.
Questions to Discuss
- What is the role of welfare reforms for the development of the family concept?
- Can any changes in the welfare programs affect the situation related to the disadvantaged categories of the population positively?