|
|
Home SW 230 Syllabus Courses I teach Social welfare •Social welfare "a nation's system of programs, benefits, and services that help people meet those social, economic and health needs that are fundamental to the maintenance of society" - Social Work Dictionary • Is social work the same as social welfare? Two dominant views •Residual - people should normally be able to meet their basic needs and only when the"job market" has failed, should systems of social welfare become involved. •Institutional - social welfare services are viewed as normal, first line functions of a modern socialized, industrialized society Two early methods •Indoor relief - In colonial U.S. poor were rotated around to families in the communities. Developed into institutions, poor house, alms house, work house mid 1800's. Orphanages are a form of indoor relief, became the dominant expression of public welfare. •Outdoor relief - aide provided to poor in their own home. Private charity organizations favored this. What view currently characterizes welfare in he United States? History of social welfare Roots of welfare •United States model of social welfare has English roots • Charity in the middle ages – Feudal Society – The church – Early hospitals - The black death 1348 resulted in labor shortage. Statute of Laborers (1349) •Mobility of the poor restricted, poor must take any job and set a maximum wage. Was important because: –related poverty to labor problems, i.e. work for the first time. "The king saw poverty, begging, movement and vagrancy and the labor shortage as the same thing". •Also first of a trend of dealing with dependency in a repressive manor • Although repressive, eventually (hundreds of years) lead to social security legislation Breakdown of feudal societies in 1500's •Industrial revolution, famine, opening up of new world and new trade routes • Serfs dislocated to urban environments to make room for sheep/wool. • Shift from feudal to wage economy.. •Although feudalism was brutal, serfs and later tenants were still responsibility of lord and there was some security provided during harsh times. When this fell apart it resulted in repressive action against the poor Elizabethan Poor Law - 1601 • After the breakdown society, Parliament is forced to accept a role of providing for poor • Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 - was brought to US colonies •Able bodied Poor (unworthy poor, sturdy beggars) - forced into workhouse • Children and the impotent (worthy poor, sick, infirmed) - forced into almshouses • Defined unit of government responsible for poor (parish), secular oversight, required families to take care of own •Mobility from parish to parish restricted - overseers did not want to be responsible for support • People responsible for parents and children for three generations • Vagrancy was a crime Speenhamland Act -1795 •- humane response to raising wheat prices, provided a wage subsidy. However, continued to lower wages requiring wage subsidies to make up difference. No minimum wage provision.. 1834 - New poor law •Pauperism was willful • The condition of the pauper who was relieved should be worse than the condition of the poorest, independent, self-supporting laborer In US Colonies •Brought over the Elizabethan Poor Law - Adopted in Plymouth Colony, 1642 followed by Virginia, 1646 • Division of state/federal governments - aide to poor became state's responsibility because of the structure of government established by the constitution. •The founding fathers wanted a weak centralized (federal government) and strong states. This continues to hamper the development of consistent, national welfare policy Colonial values •Early Judeo-Christian concepts of charity conflicted with the reformation and the "protestant work ethic" •Protestant work ethic -Salvation by hard work Colonial values •Puritan Calvinists - predestination. Saved or damned at birth, charitable works could not alter fate •Prosperity was seen as indication of predestined salvation or being one of the "elect" Adam Smith - "The Wealth of Nations" (1776) •Government should not interfere with the natural functioning of the market place • Supply and demand marketplace • Taxation to support the poor interfers with the rights of the wealthy • Creates dependency and interfered with the market's natural functioning. • Laissez-faire principle. Thomas Malthus •Economic theorist and philosopher • An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) • The relief of the poor contributes to overpopulation. Herbert Spencer • Social Darwinism - Only the fittest people should survive. Welfare in the 1800's •Public tended towards indoor relief, repressive poor laws – distrust of public bureaucracies Beliefs about the nature of poverty •Individual causes, usually moral defects. • 1818 the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism listed the causes of poverty as "ignorance, idleness, intemperance, want of economy, imprudent and hasty marriages, lotteries, houses of ill repute...." Late 1800's •Rapid social change, immigration, urbanization, industrialization • Heavy utilization of indoor relief and poor houses Dorothea Dix •Mental health reformer • Pierce vetoed her legislation to provide federal lands for mental institutions didn't believe that federal government had obligation to provide for indigents. Mutual Aid among African Americans •1784 - Rhode Island first state to free slaves –Some gained freedom fighting in American Revolution, others by serving out indentured servitude •Slavery existed in both North and South • No personal rights such as the right to marry, often had to leave southern states if freed Informal and formal mutual aid •Extended families, kinship • Underground railroad (Harriet Taubman) • Free African Americans • Masons and Oddfellows - African American lodges permitted Civil War 1865-1869 • 1865 -Freedman's Bureau -educational programs and financial assistance for former slaves. First federal social welfare agency The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, Abandoned Lands • Distributed food, clothing, medical supplies to starving blacks and whites. • Established forty-six hospitals, orphanages and over four thousand schools for African American Children • It helped established institutions of higher learning for African Americans - Fisk, Howard, Atlanta Freedman's Bureau •Disbanded in 1872 • Segregated social welfare agencies after that Relief movements of the 1880's •Charity Organization Society -1886, Buffalo, NY. Poor were unworthy, morally weak, careful investigation before aid. Friendly visitors provided moral uplifting to poor •Mary Richmond - leader of COS, taught in the first social work school in New York School of Philanthropy - now Columbia School of Social Work. • Organization, investigation and written records - methodology adopted by first agencies. Friendly visitors replaced by paid staff, 1900. Jane Addams •Settlement House Movement - involved concepts of self-help and mutual aid rather than moral uplift • Jane Addams - established Hull House, Chicago -1889 • Responded to industrialization and immigration Social legislation in the 20th century Progressive years - 1900 to 1930 • Women vote - 1920 • Worker's comp laws in 43 states, children's labor regulated by Department of Labor, 1909. • Expansion in voluntary organizations - Boy Scouts, Red Cross Federal Initiatives 1930-1968 •Depression 1929 • Roosevelt - New Deal programs consisted of temporary relief and workfare • Social Security Act of 1935. Social Security Act: • Expanded to include disabled and Medicare/Medicaid - Title XIX in 1965. Now OASDHI • Public assistance - means test or income eligibility Categories for assistance •Blind, aged and dependent children which has evolved into AFDC • Permanently disabled - Supplemental Security Income (SSI) combined elderly, blind and disabled into one program, 1974 • General assistance - able bodied poor. Being eliminated. 1960's War on Poverty • Civil Rights • Expansion of AFDC –could be extended to families with male in home (AFDC-UP) •Medicaid 1968 to 1997 •1981 - Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act •1988 -Family Support Act –Forced women to work, but women/families could retain Medicaid and child care for one year •1994 - Contract with America – Block grants to states and waivers Welfare Reform •1996 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act • TANF –must be working at least 30 hours – Five year maximum
|