Cracking the AP U.S. Government & Politics Exam 2020, Premium Edition by The Princeton Review

Author:The Princeton Review
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2019-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Social Welfare

No matter how well intentioned the government has been, and no matter how much money has been spent, poverty has remained a perpetual problem for policy makers at both the state and federal levels. The first federal welfare programs were established by the Social Security Act in the 1930s. The largest and most controversial became known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

All social welfare programs are designed to help targeted groups. Public assistance programs, known as welfare, target families whose total income falls below the federally determined minimum amount required to provide for the basic needs of a family. The present amount is approximately $17,000 for a family of four. The larger the family, the more income is required and the more money is paid out. Critics claimed that welfare was an incentive for families to have more children. Further complicating matters were complaints from recipients about a system that was degrading because investigators, looking for welfare cheaters, were invading their privacy.

In addition to AFDC, the federal government has established supplemental public assistance programs (known as SSI) to help the disabled and the aged who are living at or near the poverty level. To improve the diet and increase the buying power of the poor, the federal government also provides food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits. Recipients use government-provided debit cards to help pay for food. Both SSI and the food-stamp program are federal programs administered through local and state agencies.

In an effort to reduce the number of people living on public assistance, the Welfare Reform Act was passed in 1996. Under the law, social welfare programs are funded by both the state and federal governments, with the federal government contributing the greatest share in the form of block grants. Block grants are important because they allow states to experiment with new types of programs designed to get people off welfare and into work programs. The administration of programs (the distribution of cash payments) and the incentives for finding work and providing job training are left to the states. The intent of the law is to reduce the welfare rolls and force people to find work. This is accomplished by

abolishing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which has affected 22% of the families in the United States with children and replacing it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

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