Any attempt by the government to transform the social welfare policy of a nation is referred to as welfare reform. There are myriads of reasons why a government may desire to undertake a social welfare reform program. For instance, there are several poor households who continually depend on the assistance from the government.
However, a well planned social welfare program has a higher potential of reducing overdependence on government. Hence, social welfare reform improves the self-sufficiency level of citizens who are relatively low income earners (Hacker, 2004).
Some critics argue that the social welfare programs that were formed during the Great Depression era did not meet the expected goals and objectives of welfare assistance. It is imperative to mention that most of those social welfare reforms were formed hurriedly without proper structures and policy frameworks. In addition, the original social welfare reform programs were not as dynamic as expected.
In spite of the fact times were changing and ushering new challenges, the old programs were not flexible enough to be compatible with the emerging needs. This paper explores the social welfare reforms in the United States since the era of the Great Depression.
The Welfare Reform Act that was passed sometimes in 1996 aimed at creating an end to social welfare programs in the United States. Proponents of act argued that the social welfare structure had existed in the country for extremely long time and as such, such programs were no longer necessary (Besharov & Germanis, 2000).
Even though the old welfare structure was to be done away with, a similar welfare system was to be enacted. Hence, the much needed change was to be facilitated by the Welfare Reform Act. The Welfare-to-Work proposal was one of the proposed changes under the new Act.
In addition, individuals who used to benefit from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) package were then expected to work twenty hours within a period of seven days. Moreover, in order to meet this requirement, twelve authorized activities were listed down by the same reform statute. It is believed that this reform initiative assisted poor families greatly because they ended up being self-reliant and not fully depending on government handouts.
The impacts of the newly enacted and implemented reforms were realized in a record period of three years (Hacker, 2004). Most Americans were eventually capable of sustaining themselves compared to the initially created social welfare programs during the era of Great Depression.
Although the social welfare reform discussed above was a watershed in the social wellbeing of poor Americans, other alternatives were equally introduced in order to boost the viability of the on-going initiatives. For example, the Congress passed the 2003 welfare reform agenda. As a matter of fact, the welfare reform act that was adopted in 1996 was the main building block of the 2003 reforms.
The key goal of the 2003 reforms was to boost the aspect of financial assistance to individuals and households that were still relying on full government support. The new reform agenda also aimed at strengthening individual families and protecting minors from social hardships. This was an additional clause that would ensure equitable or general state of fairness among the American public.
In order to acquire the much needed independent status, both the state and local governments aided these disadvantaged groups in attaining the stated goals. Unfortunately, the Welfare-to-Work program came to an end in 2004 in spite of the fact that the program positively transformed millions of lives when it was active. The worst impact of this untimely end was the reversal of all the gains that had been achieved for relatively lengthy time.
Since the inception of the first ever welfare group some sixty years ago, several positive changes have been realized among the poor American citizens. On the same note, household needs have continually transformed both in terms of diversity and variety. In order to cater for the changes that have take place among different families, the political class has regularly made reforms on the available social welfare programs.
They have managed to determine both failure and success stories and acted accordingly in improving them. One of the major political undertakings by politicians has been the reauthorization of welfare legislations that are already in place. This explains why the reauthorization of the TANF initiative took place in 2005.
As an impact, this welfare program has been instrumental in reshaping lives among millions of Americans who were initially living under difficult economic circumstances (Schäfer, 2007). Other social welfare programs such as Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid, and Food Stamps have been indeed helpful to several Americans with low income brackets.
However, certain requirements must be met in order to be eligible for any of these social welfare initiatives. In terms of ramifications, there are about four impacts of social welfare policy that have been instrumental before the onset of the 1980s. To begin with, the underlying premise of social help advanced by the welfare programs has been questioned and debated on various platforms.
Women are now being stigmatized for not being part and parcel of the workforce even though the social welfare programs were initiated to assist poor mothers in bringing up their children (Schäfer, 2007). Secondly, although social security system has not been interfered with at all in the US, assistance programs suffered several blows since most of them were either reformed or done away with completely.
Thirdly, the individual social policies of states have been put through experiments by the federal waivers. Some of the examples include welfare-to-work programs and health insurance (Blank, 2007). In summary, it can be concluded that the inception of social welfare programs can be dated back to the Great Depression era when American citizens faced hard economic times.
Since then, several reform packages have been undertaken in these social welfare initiatives in order to boost their validity and suitability with the changing times. They were formed to cater for the social well being of communities that had been hard hit by the tough economic conditions. Therefore, long term planning was not put into consideration at all.
In any case, most of the social welfare programs formed during the Great Depression era failed to remain vibrant and self-supportive for a long time. They still demanded government support several decades after they had been formed. Nonetheless, it is crucial to mention that even the contemporary social welfare programs can hardly suffice the needs of all low income earners in the United States and therefore, regular reforms are necessary in order to restructure their operations to be in tandem with the emerging needs of communities.
References
Besharov, D. J. & Germanis P. (2000). Welfare Reform: Four Years Later. The Public Interest140: 17-35.
Blank, R. (2007). Improving the Safety Net for Single Mothers Who Face Serious Barriers to Work.. The Future of Children, 17(2): 183-197.
Hacker, J. S. (2004). Privatizing risk without privatizing the welfare state: The hidden politics of social policy retrenchment in the United States. American Political Science Review, 98(2), 243-260.
Schäfer, R.A. (2007). Social Policy and Welfare Reform in the United States-An Introduction. American Studies Journal 49(3), 9-14.