About Welfare
The term "welfare" commonly refers to any government program that provides assistance to people in need. Those programs include pensions to senior citizens, unemployment and disability insurance, survivor benefits, and many forms of family assistance. Interestingly, the US is the world's only wealthy nation that does not provide a national health insurance program other than Medicare and Medicaid for seniors and low-income people.
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History
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Prior to the Great Depression in the US in the 1930s, welfare as we know it was almost non-existent. But with so many people out of work, the federal government viewed continuity of income as a federal problem. It responded by passing both Social Security and unemployment compensation laws for low-income seniors and families with children. Years later, the government also began providing so-called "in kind" benefits in the form of food stamps and Medicaid.
Size
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The federal government runs about 75 major welfare programs. The states contribute manpower and money to many of these, as well as programs their own, state-run, programs. It is estimated that between the federal and state governments, over $500 billion is spent annually, with about three-quarters of that cost borne by the federal government. To put it in perspective, the annual cost of the nation's welfare program costs more than $6,000 for every household that pays taxes. Out of necessity, welfare expenditures are greater than the Gross National Product of the United States
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Identification
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The United States sees to it that more of the needs of low-income people are met than about 90 percent of the nations on this earth. For example, by 2003, the US government provided some form of aid to 2.3 million low-income families, not counting approximately 50 million senior citizens that receive monthly Social Security checks. The country provides so much to low-income families that those benefits are considered by many to be a disincentive to work, although in many cases, it is not true.
Geography
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There is a geographic basis for much of the welfare dispensed by both the federal and state governments. For example, in the northern part of the US, known for cold winters, a greater need is evidenced in the winter months. Hurricane Katrina that devastated the Southern portion of the country was reason for much of the nation's attention to low-income people. Finally, when the job market is in peril, as it has been in Michigan for a number of years, the state and federal governments must give a disproportionate share of it welfare dollars to people there.
Potential
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No end is in sight of the numbers of programs that will be established for low-income people. That is particularly true when the Democrats are in power, either in Washington, or at the state level, because that is a meaningful item on their agenda.
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