Bryan Warde's Shadow Of The Poorhouse: A History Of Social Welfare In America

In the textbook Inequality in US Social Policy, Bryan Warde introduces the chapter by defining social welfare. Social welfare is defined as “a subset of social policy, a system of governmental laws, programs and benefits, and services that are designed to protect against the broadly distributed risk to income” (Hacker, 2002) (Warde, 2017 p. 184). Warde expands on the notion of social welfare in the field of social work. He explains that social workers are of utmost importance to the welfare system as well as the development of welfare policies, since these work alongside agencies that provide services to communities that make use of welfare resources. Similarly, Michael B. Katz, in his article Shadow of The Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America, provides an insight on the historic war for achieving social welfare. For instance, Katz explains that the idea of social insurance dates back to the days of John F. Kenney and Lyndon B. Johnson who were the first in considering these systems. However, these faced prohibitions from the business community given the implications it meant for businesses that low-income people would receive government assistance. Moreover, given the social conflicts faced at the time, Katz states that “social welfare policy became one strategy for attacking the consequences of racism in America.” (Katz, 1996). According to (Katz, 1996) it was not until 1974 that social welfare began to expand into programs that benefited families with dependent children. This transformation began with Public Welfare Amendments of 1962 and ended with the Social Security Amendments, especially Title XX of 1974. in addition, Warde (2017) highlights that social workers work mostly with single mothers who tend to be the most disadvantaged according to an increase in poverty rates shown in the 2013 Census (Warde, 2017, p. 185). As a result of these statistics, the government implemented a set of programs to benefit marginalized single mothers. These programs are the Mothers’ Pension, Aid to Dependent Children and Aid to Families with Dependent Children as well as Temporary assistance for needy families. Arguably, these social welfare programs have been largely criticized for the inability of providing all needy people with the same assistance. For instance, Warde (2017) explains that ethnicity was a big concern since the access to these pensions were largely controlled and only provided to European immigrant mothers but not to Mexican, native Americans, and Asians. (Warde, 2017 p. 189) Arguably, both Warde and Katz share their research in a very detailed manner. One would argue that Katz’s argument is heavily based on historical facts and research. Katz provides the reader with a clear pathway of how events took place and how each event preceded the next. On the other …show more content…
For instance, Katz (1998) states that President Lyndon Johnson proposed a major housing legislation named the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 which called for federally subsidized housing for low-income families every ten years. This program was then reestablished in such a way that low-income families could get allowances so people could choose their own housing. According to Katz, the government overspent each time they engage in a new program. However, engaging in these activities decreased the proportion of disadvantaged Americans. In fact, many of the government implemented programs in the mid 1960-1970 allowed to assist many people out of poverty especially the elderly. (Katz,