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This article is about financial assistance paid by government organizations. For other uses of term welfare, see Welfare . For the means-tested benefit in the United Kingdom, see Income Support . Welfare is financial assistance paid by taxpayers to people who are unable to support themselves. Some welfare is general, while is are specific and can only be invoked under certain circumstances, such as a Scholarship . Welfare payments can be made to individuals or to Companies Or Entities --these latter payments are often considered Corporate Welfare . Individuals may apply for welfare due to Disability , lack of Education or job training, a low demand for unskilled labor, Substance Abuse , or an unwillingness to work. Assistance may also take the form of other relief, such as Tax Credit s for working mothers. Welfare is known by a variety of names in different countries, all with the avowed purpose of providing an economic or Social Safety Net for disadvantaged members of society. Almost all Developed Nation s provide some kind of safety net of this kind; nations where such programs are especially prominent are known as Welfare State s. The desired outcome and purpose of welfare varies. For welfare for the non-disabled, the purpose often is to prevent complete destitution. Welfare or assistance for the disabled, in contrast, does not eventually expect non-dependency, and the justification is more Philosophical . " Corporate Welfare ," usually in the form of favorable tax policy, is sometimes used in order to provide Capital to an Industry that the government perceives needs financial assistance in order to survive or to expand, or which the government wishes to support for political or economic purposes. Some of these ideal outcomes and purposes, as well as welfare's effectiveness have been challenged by political lobbies such as those who oppose Big Government and "forced charity", such as Minarchists or Libertarians . The amounts paid to recipients are typically modest, and may fall below the Poverty Line . Recipients must usually demonstrate a low level of income such as by way of "means testing", or financial hardship, or that they satisfy some other requirement such as Childcare responsibilities or disability. Those receiving unemployment benefits may also have to regularly demonstrate that they are periodically searching for employment. Some countries assign specific jobs to recipients who must work in these roles in order for welfare payments to continue. In the United States and Canada , such programs are known as Workfare . CORPORATE WELFARE See Also: Corporate welfare Corporate welfare is supposed welfare on a larger scale for entities and companies. The term is often pejorative. The term was originally coined by and Welfare Payment s to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less needy of such treatment than the poor; as such, the term is usually used by those who oppose such handouts to corporations. One of the questions on the World's Smallest Political Quiz asks the reader whether or not he/she supports ending "corporate welfare"; this is one of the questions used to differentiate between different political ideologies ( Centrist , Liberal , Conservative , Statist and Libertarian ). World's Smallest Political Quiz WELFARE IN THE UNITED STATES See also: Social Security (United States) Welfare services in the United States have traditionally been more limited than those in European nations. As one author writes, "compared with most other rich Capitalist societies, the American welfare state is more market-conforming."Noble, Charles, Welfare as We Knew It: A Political History of the American Welfare State Welfare assistance of various kinds is provided in the , such as the US Department Of Housing And Urban Development and the US Department Of Health And Human Services , through special programs to Recipients . In the United States, personal welfare is normally given to households with children, often headed by single mothers. Since the landmark federal welfare reform act in website Since 1996, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has largely replaced AFDC as the primary anti-poverty program in the United States Congressional Budget Office Analysis . While not termed "welfare" in the USA, there are a variety of other personal transfer payments which are financial assistance programs; examples of such transfer payments are Unemployment Compensation (which, unlike welfare, is not means-tested and is prepaid by employees before job loss) and Tobacco taxes, part of which are disbursed for Hospital care for the needy (as well as the general public). With regard to personal welfare for individuals without children, most U.S. State s had been providing welfare or assistance benefits to single adults and childless married couples since the Great Depression , but the number of states doing so declined steeply during the 1990s , and many of the states that still provide such benefits use methods other than cash payments to render the assistance. For example, many California counties currently provide only vouchers. At present, only a few states — New Jersey , Utah and Minnesota among them — still provide cash benefits to poverty-stricken adults who do not have child dependents. These programs were often known officially by such names as Home Relief , General Assistance , or General Relief. HISTORY OF WELFARE There is relatively little statistical data on welfare Transfer Payment s until at least the High Middle Ages . In the Medieval period and until the Industrial Revolution , the function of welfare payments in Europe was principally achieved through private giving or Charity . In those early times there was a much broader group considered in Poverty compared to the 21st century. Early welfare programs included the , which introduced the system of Workhouses . It was predominantly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that an organised system of state welfare provision was introduced in many countries. Bitesize, a system later expanded by Clement Attlee . The United States did not have an organised welfare system until the Great Depression , when emergency relief measures were introduced under President Franklin D. Roosevelt . Even then, Roosevelt's New Deal focused predominantly on a programme of providing work and stimulating the economy through Public Spending on projects, rather than on welfare handouts. In the late twentieth century, a perception grew that existing welfare systems were becoming excessively bureaucratic and inefficient. The United States Social Security system has come under particular criticism, and many political figures, such as George W. Bush , have argued for a more work-based system of welfare provision. SEE ALSO REFERENCES |
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