by Austin S

Created on: March 17, 2009

Saying Farewell to Welfare

It is believed that a great portion of the United States population is living under the poverty line; and it has historically been up to the federal and state governments to do something about the situation, however it is not generally agreed upon from institution to institution what poverty really means. Is poverty the same as being poor? If it is then one would have to ask are the requirements for government funding socio-economically biased?' "Poverty is caused primarily- not exclusively, to be sure- by changes in family composition and transformations in the low-wage labor market."(We the Poor People, pg 11) For those who are under the poverty line there are programs like welfare that can enable them to sustain a capable life. Welfare, however, makes the assumption that there are plenty of jobs in the market to suite the number of people who are on welfare. This is not the case. For most of the people who receive welfare there are not enough jobs that will enable them to become dependant. While there is some jobs available not everyone has access, being unviable for work, to them and in most cases the wages are merely enough to sustain the requirements needed to keep the job (transportation cost, clothing, schooling etc). Because of this "there are a great many people who are working but still in poverty."(We the Poor People, pg 38) A declining job-market is not the only factor that may bring on a poverty spell. In a greater number of cases poverty has been brought on by a woman, who has children, becoming the head of household. Interestingly though, there is not one kind of poverty but many. "A permanent poverty class would probably be more intricate than that of people suffering from episodic spells of poverty." "About three-fourths of new poverty spells last less than two years."(American Poverty in an Age of New Reform, pg63-4) because the lengths of poverty spell will vary case to case. It seems that those whose income falls below the poverty line (see chart A) have transitory spells that come and go. Although it is becoming cleat that poverty is a critical source for the numbers of people on welfare we need to understand how the people and their poverty developed the welfare system, how the system plans on helping the general population and address any problems that may make themselves evident. For this we cane trace the Welfare system back to its roots in the 1800's. Our fledgling nation began to stratify the population

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