What Has Been Done

There are many government assistance programs in addition to cash assistance, such as: low income housing, food stamps, the Women, Infants and Children program, and Medicare and Medicaid (Boccia, 2014). Here are four specific programs which have tried to relieve some of the problems associated with welfare:

• In 1988, the Reagan administration enacted the Family Support Act of 1988 called JOBS. It “encouraged, assisted and required [recipients] to fulfill their responsibilities to support their children by preparing for, accepting and retaining such employment as they are capable of performing.“ The government helped with “job skills training . . . child care and transportation expenses.”  (Conte, 1996).

• In 1996, President Clinton, enacted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which included work requirements and time limits on aid.  “Within five years of the enactment of TANF, caseloads dropped by approximately 50%” (Rector & Marshall, 2013). The greatest impact on these numbers was from mandatory work requirements.

• Another organization trying to get mothers back to work is Childspace Management Group, a “worker cooperative whose member/owners are the Childspace staff” (Childspace Day Care Centers, 2015). “Childspace aims to turn day care—one of the problems faced by mothers . . . —into a job opportunity” (Fine, 1997). Mothers can work in daycare where their children are, and have the option to buy into the company after one year on the job.

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has had a system in place since 1936 when, then President of the Church, Heber J. Grant, instituted it with the primary purpose that “idleness would be done away with . . . The aim of the Church is to help people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership” (Riley, 2012). In her article, A Welfare System That Works, Naomi Schaefer Riley says “The Latter-day Saints are proving that private citizens can support a vast and effective social welfare system” (2012).