Poverty and Welfare essays

Poverty and Welfare essays Poverty has plagued mankind throughout history, yielding various justifications for its existence along the way. One of these arguments is that poverty is simply a structural flaw created by the market system of capitalism. As a response to poverty in the capitalist society, welfare programs were created and executed for the first time. And though many of these programs exhibit disappointing outcomes and have proven to be susceptible to abuse, welfare programs as a whole have helped to improve the individual liberties of lower class individuals. Indeed, it is the duty of a democratic government to create equality of opportunity for its citizens, and to avoid the equality of outcome so feared by conservatives and critics of liberal welfare reforms. Since racial discrimination has in the past played a large role in perpetuating poverty, government involvement is necessary to put racial minorities in the same socioeconomic level as the majority. In America, African Americans had been fiercely segregated and enslaved for hundreds of years, robbing them of property and even liberty enjoyed by Caucasian Americans. As a result of this discrimination, African Americans emerged poorer than the average white citizens, even after the Civil Rights Movement Legislation of 1950s. In response, various social institutions and public assistance bureaus were created to reduce the difference in economic status (Pivan and Cloward, p128). Sadly, because of individual and structural discrimination that remained in American society, most blacks, who moved to areas like as Chicago, New York, Los Angles, Baltimore, Newark, and Philadelphia during the Great Migration never found new employment (Pivan and Cloward, p 128). Moreover, African Americans who had jobs during the recession of the 1960s There is a lack of sympathy among conservatives. Murray notes, "Because it was eas...