Welfare

I

Introduction

Welfare, programs aimed at helping people unable to support themselves fully or earn a living. Welfare recipients include elderly people, people with mental or physical disabilities, and those needing help to support dependent children. People in the United States most commonly use the term welfare to refer to government-funded programs that provide economic support, goods, and services to unemployed or underemployed people. Professionals in the field of public policy and social work use the term social welfare in a broader sense to describe any program, either privately or publicly funded, that helps people to function more fully in society.

All developed nations maintain a variety of social welfare programs. Countries offer many such programs as rights of citizenship. Governments establish welfare systems to provide a so-called safety net to prevent people from suffering the effects of poverty. However, many people believe that welfare encourages its recipients to become dependent on government support and remain unemployed. As a result, welfare programs have always aroused heated public debate.

II

Reasons for Welfare

In any society, not all people are able to work. Societies recognize that the very young and old have limited capacities to perform work, as do people with severe mental or physical disabilities. In some cases, there are not enough employment opportunities for everyone who is capable and interested in working. Welfare is a means by which societies help support these segments of the population.

In a free-market economy, such as that of the United States and most other nations, a certain percentage of capable, working-age adults will always be unemployed. Unemployment rates vary regionally and from season to season, as technology and desirable job skills change, and as workforces grow or diminish. Unemployment rates also vary considerably from country to country.

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Long-term economic changes have also weakened social support systems, which in turn has increased the need for social welfare programs. Into the 19th century, many people lived in large extended families that worked together for generations on family farms. The size of the family—which could include grandparents, cousins, and other relatives—and its stability were important for farm production. During the 19th and 20th centuries, countries around the world shifted from primarily agrarian (farming) to primarily industrial economies (see Industrial Revolution). In the late 20th century, some of these nations shifted again and became primarily postindustrial (service- and information-based) economies.

Wherever these shifts occurred, the tradition of people living in large families began to disappear. Many people began living in smaller families, consisting of only married couples and their children. Industrial and postindustrial jobs—in factories, retail stores, and offices—often depend on flexible and mobile workers. Since most of these jobs are away from the home, people must seek work and take it where it is offered. They may have to commute long distances from home to work, and they may have to relocate with certain jobs. Most people in developed countries today have completely separate family and work lives. Small, flexible families are better suited to these kinds of work patterns. Small families do not, however, provide the kind of social support that extended families do. In addition, many countries have a growing number of single-parent households—which provide even less support than do typical nuclear families—and increasing numbers of people living alone.

Fundamental changes in the global economy also create welfare needs. In the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, capital, expertise, and trade moved across national boundaries with increasing ease, creating both opportunities and risks. Businesses began moving low-skill jobs to countries that could provide cheap labor (see Outsourcing). They also created many new, higher-skill jobs, such as those in technological and scientific research and computer programming. These changes have affected both developed and developing nations. They often require that people move, learn new skills, or dramatically alter their living arrangements for work. Such shifts leave people in situations where they may need a safety net.

III

History of Welfare

Welfare systems are formalized versions of types of social support that societies have always maintained. In all societies since the beginning of civilization, able-bodied adults have worked to support themselves as well as to provide for young, elderly, and disabled family members and, often, nonfamily members. In ancient societies nonproductive members (the elderly, the disabled, and weaker children) seldom survived for long; in some cases, they were sacrificed for the good of the whole. By the Middle Ages in Europe, such vulnerable individuals were surviving longer and societies began to establish formal economic arrangements for giving charity to those in need. Donations by churches and from local feudal lords and other wealthy individuals supported hospitals, orphanages, and almshouses (publicly funded homes for the poor).

A

The English Poor Laws

The English Poor Laws, a system set up by the government of England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, attempted to establish a clear public responsibility for care of the poor. Under these laws, government authorities divided the poor into two groups. The “deserving poor” were those deemed unable to work—primarily the disabled, blind, and elderly. The able-bodied unemployed were labeled the “undeserving poor.” Those considered unable to work were generally eligible for cash or other forms of assistance in their homes, known as outdoor relief. Those who could work were provided with what amounted to public-service employment. Such government-funded work was known as indoor relief, because it was usually done inside large public facilities called workhouses. As a last resort, some of those unable to work and provide for themselves sought refuge in poorhouses or almshouses, publicly funded institutions that offered food and shelter.

The Poor Laws made local government the primary administrator of welfare. To keep welfare beneficiaries under the supervision of their providers, the laws also discouraged the migration of the poor among administrative regions, or parishes. From their inception, the Poor Laws generated controversy. Opponents of the laws argued that if the poor received public assistance, some of them might avoid work, not work hard enough, or not save any of their earnings.

Despite such criticism, some Poor Law administrators hoped they could prevent welfare dependency by making people work for benefits. In a major work initiative begun in the late 1700s, administrators assigned relief recipients to work at private farms and businesses. Public funds were used to supplement the wages of those assigned to this work requirement and to those privately employed at starvation wages. This plan became known as the Speenhamland System, after the British parish in which it was pioneered.

In the late 1830s, many local governments also established workhouses, where the able-bodied poor worked when no private work was available. Workhouses were often made to be unpleasant places, so that people would seek even meagerly paid menial jobs before taking workhouse employment.

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