The Welfare State In the United States of America (Microeconomics) Term Paper

The Welfare State In the United States of America (Microeconomics) - Term Paper Example Funded and managed by the U.S. government, these programs aspire towards ensuring economic security, universal access to resource for self-development and the reduction of social suffering, such as poverty and illness (Barr 4). Modern liberalism is the guiding philosophy of the United States Welfare System (McGowan 7). The philosophy says that individual liberty depends on positive rights such as social security, unemployment benefits, health care, and public education. Historically, welfare in the United States can be traced to the British Poor Laws, which distinguish between those unable to work due to age or physical challenges and those who are medically fit to work but are unemployed (Welfare Information welfareinfo.org). Monetary assistance was given to the former group while public service employment was provided for the later group by the government. Following the American Civil War, the United State Congress passed the Civil War Pension Program to provide aid to Civil War Ve terans and their families (Welfare Information welfareinfo.org). The United States welfare system, as currently known, started under President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a result of the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, one in every four of the American labor force was unemployed and many families underwent great financial hardship. The Franklin D. Roosevelt government stepped in to solve the problem. ... ty Income, Housing and Urban Development programs, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Head Start, Work Study, Medicare, and Social Security (Welfare Information welfareinfo.org). The politics, benefits and issues related to these programs as well as a comparison of United States welfare programs with welfare programs in other countries will be discussed in the term paper. Welfare programs in the United States: issues and politics Assisting the needy while not encouraging them to seek employment forms the foundation of the politics of the United States welfare programs. By the 1990s, welfare reform dominated the political scene due to a number of reasons. In fact, Republicans campaigned for an â€Å"end to welfare as we know it†, a policy theme, the President Clinton administration embraced (Politics and Social Welfare wps.prenhall.com). The reasons for these reforms were cogent and apparent. First, was the fact that most women can continue to work after childbirth and th ere was no reason for welfare mothers, who stay at home to claim welfare package. Another reason was the observation that some Americans were having more children in order to receive more aid. Furthermore, there was an alarming increase in unmarried mothers, for which welfare package was the incentive. Last, was the increasing number of voluntary unemployment among the labor class. Thus there was increasing dissatisfaction with welfare as epitomized by Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) among many Americans, and welfare reform forms a hot topic in the 1990s. In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Welfare Reform Act that gave the control of welfare system to states. Abolishing the AFDC, the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 support a system of block grants to states, constraining the