United States Government Welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt thought of this system as an aid for low-income families whose men were off to war, or injured while at war. The welfare system proved to be beneficial early on by giving families temporary aid, just enough to help them accommodate their family’s needs. Fast forward almost 90 years, and it has become apparent that this one once helpful system, has become flawed. Welfare itself and the ideologies it stands on, contains decent fundamentals; furthermore, this system of aid needs only to be reformed to better meet the needs of today’s society.
Following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the United States fell into the worst economic depression it had ever seen. Over nine-thousand banks failed, leading Americans everywhere to question where their money went. As banks failed, workers became jobless, houses became ownerless, and people everywhere were filled with sadness (Rosenberg).
Over twenty-five percent of Americans nationwide were unemployed during the Great Depression. With the lack of workers, and lack of production, many companies could not manufacture enough product to supply the demand of foreign importers; therefore, foreign companies began to buy product from other countries that could meet their demands. This led to a vicious circle of turmoil for companies that relied on exporting products to other countries (Rosenberg). The Great Depression was too much for president Hoover to handle. His successor Franklin D. Roosevelt had a bundle of ideas named the New Deal. In which, the birth of United States Government Welfare was born (“New Deal”).
Franklin D. Roosevelt understood that the he alongside with the U.S. Government, needed to take drastic measures in order to get the country back in order. Together, government officials and Roosevelt created the New Deal. Many different programs were created, all of which were designed to provide Americans jobs, give temporary aid to the needy, and in a broad sense just get America out of the Great Depression. Welfare was implemented to provide temporary aid to the needy so that they could use such capital to get back on his/her feet and continue with a productive life (“Fix Welfare”).
Welfare was accepted as a success and continued for almost sixty years. In the 1990’s Americans began to question the effectiveness of the government welfare system. In 1992, President Bill Clinton took office. One of his main problems to address while in office was the corrupted welfare system. After four years of brainstorming and planning, the United States Government decided upon how to eliminate the corrupted members of society from collecting government welfare.
In 1996, the federal government came to the conclusion that the welfare system should be placed in the hands of the state governments. With this in mind, the Temporary Aid to Needy Families was established. The TANF is more governed towards getting...
