Social+Welfare+Policymaking

Power Points

Description: We look at a specific public policy arena in this section. Social welfare policy refers to any of a number of policies that relate to the general welfare of the population. This includes some of the larger programs at the national level including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It also involves interrelationships between the national, state and local governments, so this can be a very complex policy area.

In this section we try to come to grips with the current nature of social welfare policy and how it has evolved over time.

Goals: After reading through the material above, you should be able to address the following questions: - What is "social welfare" and what various specific policies can it refer to? - What is "poverty?" How is it measured and what controversies are associated with it and how to best address it? - How has the poverty rate changed over the course of time? - What were the Elizabethan Poor Laws? How do they continue to condition the content of poverty legislation and general attitudes about the poor? How have attitudes about the poor changed over time and why? - What various agencies are associated with different aspects of social welfare policy? - How have poverty programs changed over the course of time? How have - How was poverty affected by the Social Security Act? - What does the SSA contain? What constitutional questions were raised about it? - What was the "war on poverty" and what programs were created during it? - Be familiar with budgetary questions about these programs.