Welfare Reform
Welfare Reform: A Permanent Solution or a Temporary Band-Aid? Welfare: handouts to the lazy, or a helping hand to those facing hard times? The debate continues, even in the face of sweeping welfare reform, which, for all of its sound and fury, has not helped or changed much. What's wrong with welfare and how can we fix it? This is not a simple question, and there is no simple answer. However, one thing remains eminently clear. Welfare desperately needs to change. But where are we now? Are we headed backward or forward? Does anybody even care? To answer these questions, we must catch a glimpse of the world of welfare.It is not a pretty sight. Welfare is Odessa, a grandmother in her seventies, who digs through other people's trash to find suitable clothes for her grandchildren. Welfare is Mariluz, who lived in a tent with two children below the age of five, because her welfare check would not pay the rent of even the most squalid apartments in North Philadelphia. Welfare is Destiny, a five year old who cried in class, because when asked to recite her address, she realized that because of the numerous evictions she had been through she could not remember it. Welfare is Cheri, who after being cut off of welfare for missing a mee
The new view of the stay at home single mother, coupled with America's increasing diversity, caused great resentment toward welfare programs and their recipients. This year proponents have hailed it as the force that has cut the welfare rolls by 25% since 1994. They claimed to know everything that went through welfare mothers minds, while the fact remained that few of them had ever met a welfare mother, let alone been one. Roosevelt answered them by saying, "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in the spirit of charity, then the constant omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. There were many critics, among them liberal Congresspersons, and directors of many programs that somehow involved welfare. Welfare recipients still live below the poverty line. The resounding echo of the middle class has been "welfare's a mess, let's go back to the way things were. However, many criticize this, claiming that it is basically slave labor, and lets businesses and corpor!ations get work done for nothing. Those women who claim that it is too hard to work and raise children are often scorned by the many single professional mothers in America, most of whom are products of the country's increasing divorce rate. Now both houses were controlled by Republicans. " Knight Ridder/ Tribune News Service, November 21, 1997. They must somehow pay for transportation to and from work, pay for safe day-care for their children, and !pay rent, out of a minimum wage check. Still, many welfare mothers have dream careers. However, it is a little too soon for praise.
Common topics in this essay:
Security Act,
Rights Unions,
Federal Government,
Disabilities Act,
Republicans Clinton's,
Woem Infant,
Street USA,
Band-Aid Welfare,
Social Security,
Welfare Virginia,
welfare mothers,
welfare recipients,
single mothers,
social security,
welfare america,
social security act,
middle class,
average welfare,
job training,
welfare reform,
stay home,
welfare mothers welfare,
mothers welfare mothers,
free press 1994,
york free press,
|
Acceptance Essays
