Instead, the welfare system encouraged perpetual social dependency and provided a reason for poor people not to work at all when the most reliable method of achieving financial independence (besides continuing education) is precisely, to begin working at minimum wage jobs while gradually learning skills and establishing contacts and a record of regular employment that are essential in the long- term goal of qualifying for better work in time (Healey, 2003 p56).
The Need for Welfare Reform:
While elements of government assistance programs are still subject to epidemic abuse (Schmalleger, 2007 p104), the reconfiguration mandated by Congress in 1996 are designed to rectify some of the most glaring problems plaguing the federally administrated programs previously. First and foremost, the new state-run welfare programs must, by federal law, establish caps limiting welfare eligibility to discourage perpetual (even permanent) reliance on public funds as a substitute for making the necessary effort and commitment to seek gainful employment in the long-term (Macionis, 2003 p295). Under federal law, the maximum period of eligibility s two years and many states have rightfully shortened that period even further (Henslin, 2002 p200).
Second, since the 1996 reforms, state-run public assistance programs must also require enrollment in vocational training programs and mandatory adult supervision for unwed teenage parents pursuant to which welfare recipients who fail to participate and unwed teenage parents who fail to accept appropriate adult supervision lose their remaining welfare eligibility. Third, under the new reforms, welfare recipients must accept offers of employment irrespective of their pay scale and may not purposely choose to remain on the public dole instead of working (Macionis, 2003 p295).
Critics of the welfare reforms suggest that terminating welfare benefits and imposing stricter eligibility requirements are inappropriately harsh and disproportionately harmful to the poorest segment of society and prejudicial against racial and ethnic minorities who are over-represented in the poorest neighborhoods. Similarly, opponents of welfare reforms equate financial assistance to poor people with the financial assistance to which working members of society are entitled, such as home mortgage interest tax deductions to homeowners, Social Security benefits to...
(Frazer 8) to this end she develops the categories of "affirmation" and "transformation." In understanding Frazer's view it is imperative to bear in mind that older regimes of theory cannot achieve the synthesis that she is looking for and that new and more creative modes of political and social theory are necessary. In essence what Fraser suggests is that in order to overcome this antimony between redistribution and recognition and
Individuals who never come into contact with other societies may live their entire lives without the slightest idea that other societies exist, much less that other social norms and practices besides the ones to which they are accustomed as their reality are possible. This element of human reality is also responsible for some of the worst recorded human behavior. On one hand, certain parts of human moral thinking is inherent
While in Durkheim's concept of moral density, competition is a pre-existing condition, rationalization and social change in Weber's terms is determined by the enhancement or development of humans in their ability to adapt to their social environment. Competition, although a factor in the individual's social environment, did not become the focus of Weber's process of rationalization, as compared to Durkheim's conceptualization. Marx's dialectical materialism is likened to Durkheim's concept
Sociology Introducing Alexa Madison Basic facts from her childhood Basic facts from her adolescence Basic facts from her young adult life Issues related to race Detailed analysis of race-related issues in Alexa's life Racial identity in a multicultural society: the factors that help create an individual's racial identity and membership in a specific social group based on race or ethnicity. Implications for social status; in particular, the self-perception of African-Americans vs. The expectations placed on African-Americans Stereotypes Institutionalized racism Link to
These impulses may result in compulsive behavior ultimately leading to financial ruin and family devastation; partly for this reason, most American states had prohibited games of chance and other forms of gambling under a paternalistic attempt to protect people from their own compulsions (Lears p. 193). Las Vegas benefited from a confluence of circumstances that brought in workers and tourists to partake of something other states outlawed, and in
Both what make up a race and how one recognizes a racial difference is culturally determined. Whether two individuals consider themselves as of the same or of different races depends not on the degree of similarity of their genetic make up but on whether history, tradition, and personal training and experiences have brought them to think of themselves as belonging to the same group or to different groups (Spickard,
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