Social Welfare Policy 443 Final
Policy
principles, guidelines, or procedures that serve the purpose to maximize uniformity in decision making (social welfare policy) is the above definition of policy...in regards to the problem of dependency.
Child Nutrition Act:
Two laws provide the foundation for child nutrition programs: the 1946 National School Lunch Act and the 1966 Child Nutrition Act. Signed on October 11, 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson Congress passed the Child Nutrition Act in 1966. The Act authorized increased funding for lunches for low-income students, school kitchen equipment assistance grants, and a pilot school breakfast program, which later became the National School Breakfast Program. Congress continued to expand the scope of the National School Lunch Act and the Child Nutrition Act in the late 1960s and 70s, responding to persistent need, service gaps, and opportunities for improvement. During this time, Congress piloted and later permanently authorized the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program (CACFP), the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) was created in 1992. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 2004 required all schools to develop local school wellness policies, authorized the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, and authorized a national Farm to School Grant Program housed at USDA.
American social values (be able to identify and define each):
•Achievement and Success—means there is a great emphasis on achievement particularly occupational achievement. •Activity and Work—Americans place high value on being busy. •Moral Orientation—Right and wrong views of the world, good and bad. •Humanitarian Mores—1/3 of the population participates in voluntary service. •Efficiency and Practicality—Value good stewardship of time and material resources. •Progress—believing that things can change and can get continually better. •Material Comfort—lack of material comfort urges people to solve their own problems and gain the comforts they desire. •Equality—Americans mean equality of opportunity, not of outcome. •Freedom—preference from control of excessive and arbitrary external restraint. External Conformity—Low tolerance for people not conforming to standards •Science and Secular Rationality—the belief that Faith and science methods will solve all our problems. •Nationalism—Patriotism Ethnocentrism—the belief that membership in this group is preferable to membership in any other group. •Democracy—If everything is done by majority rule, then the minority group suffers when the majority is not sensitive to their problems. •Individual Personality—credit the person for their success and blame them for failure. •Racism, Sexism, and Related Group Superiority Themes—we pass legislation to deal with them like affirmative action, minority scholarships, etc.
Social Welfare Policy
principles, guidelines, or procedures that serve the purpose of maximizing uniformity in decision making regarding the problem of dependency.
Gilbert & Terrell's Dimensions of Choice
1. What are the bases of social allocations? Refers to eligibility; Whom are benefits given to; the who of the social welfare policy. The criteria may include marital status, employment, education, residence, health, age, etc. 2. What are the types of social provisions to be allocated? What will be the benefits that are offered; the types of social benefits to be provided? (i.e. In-Cash (monthly unemployment checks) or in-kind (tax credits, free clothing, job training, subsidized housing). 3. What are the strategies for the delivery of these provisions? How will benefits administered: It refers to alternative organizational arrangements among providers and consumers of social welfare benefits in the context of community systems (neighborhood, city, county) 4. What are the ways to finance these provisions? How are benefits paid for: Taxation (social security), voluntary contributions (private agencies), or fees (for services charged by both private nonprofit and for-profit agencies).
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act:
CNR in 2010 - The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act The 2010 CNR included the most far-reaching changes to child nutrition programs since the 1970s, including: healthier school meal standards, requiring more and a wider variety of fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, and limits on salt and saturated and trans fats for school meals; including a la carte vendors and vending machines An increase of six cents in the reimbursement rate per meal for schools meeting the new nutrition standards Reduced paperwork for parents and schools and increasing children's access to school meals by giving schools more options to automatically certify students, or even provide universal free meals. Reduced paperwork for parents and schools and increasing children's access to school meals by giving schools more options to automatically certify students, or even provide universal free meals First-time mandatory funding of $5 million annually for the Farm to School Grant program, a victory won by a coalition comprised of the Community Food Security Coalition
Delivery structure:
Centralized: More complex bureaucracy distancing clients from administrators. Linked to one organization with careful coordination between units. Ex: shelters for homeless families Decentralized: meaning that the benefits are provided through separate organizations w/ little interaction with one another (ex: children's services, Foster care, protective services, Board of Education). Coordinated: similar to centralized w/ comprehensive planning and less duplication of services. Contracting: a process in which a state public welfare department pays for private services. (ex: Child Welfare Services) contract out of case management, skills training etc.) Financing: focuses on how benefits are financed; done in a variety of ways such as through taxation, voluntary contributions, or fees)
Residual and institutional approaches to social welfare
Residual: Means-tested, usually for the poor, state and local gov't, seen as an emergency/short term program, Seen as for the "undeserving" (ex: TANF, Medicaid, SNAP - food stamps). Institutional: No time limits, no means testing, usually for non-poor, non-stigmatized usually federal gov't oversight, often seen as insurance and often not perceived as welfare, Seen as for the "deserving". (social security retirement pension, Disability, widows pension)
Social welfare policy analysis framework - Popple & Leighninger:
Descriptive analysis 1-content analysis: simply empirical description of an existing policy in terms of its intensions, problem definition, goals, and means employed for achieving the goals. Most often employed by agencies in agency reports, manuals, and brochures. 2-choice analysis: a process of looking at options available to planners to deal with social welfare problems that may be transformed into proposals, laws, or statutes that form programs. 3-Bases of allocation: What are the bases of allocations? Who will benefit from a policy? Universal or based on economic need (selective). 4-types of benefits: What are the types of social benefits to be provided? In-Cash (monthly unemployment checks) or in-kind (tax credits, free clothing, job training, subsidized housing). 5-Delivery Structure: How are services or benefits delivered? Will benefits be centralized? Decentralized, centralized, or coordinated services 6-financing: benefits How are benefits financed? Taxation (social security), voluntary contributions (private agencies), or fees (for services charged by both private nonprofit and for-profit agencies). 7-comparative analysis: involves comparing policies across two or more settings 8-Historical analysis: is based on the assumption that current policies can be fully understood if we have an understanding of their evolution. 9-Social analysis: includes the problem description, social values related to the problem, and goals of the policy. 11- Political analysis: focuses on the major stakeholders and the decision-making process during implementation. 12- Stakeholders: A person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders are creditors, directors, employees, government (and its agencies), owners (shareholders), suppliers, unions, and the community from which the business draws its resources.
History of welfare:
During the 19th century, local and state governments as well as charities established institutions such as poorhouses and orphanages for destitute individuals and families. Conditions in these institutions were often deliberately harsh so that only the truly desperate would apply. Local governments (usually counties) also provided relief in the form of food, fuel, and sometimes cash to poor residents. Those capable were required to work for the town or county, often at hard labor such as chopping wood and maintaining roads. But most on general relief were poor dependent persons not capable of working: widows, children, the elderly, and the disabled. Starting with Illinois in 1911, the "mother's pension" movement sought to provide state aid for poor fatherless children who would remain in their own homes cared for by their mothers. In effect, poor single mothers would be excused from working outside the home. The emphasis during the first two years of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" was to provide work relief for the millions of unemployed Americans. Federal money flowed to the states to pay for public works projects, which employed the jobless. Some federal aid also directly assisted needy victims of the Depression. The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called "unemployables" (widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled). But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were declining steeply. A few months later, on August 18, 1935, Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. It set up a federal retirement program for persons over 65, which was financed by a payroll tax paid jointly by employers and their workers. FDR believed that federal old-age pensions together with employer-paid unemployment insurance (also a part of the Social Security Act) would provide the economic security people needed during both good and bad times. In addition to old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, the Social Security Act established a national welfare system. The federal government guaranteed one-third of the total amount spent by states for assistance to needy and dependent children under age 16 (but not their mothers). Additional federal welfare aid was provided to destitute old people, the needy blind, and crippled children. Although financed partly by federal tax money, the states could still set their own eligibility requirements and benefit levels. This part of the law was pushed by Southern states so they could control the coverage made available to their African-American population. This is how welfare began as a federal government responsibility. Roosevelt and the members of Congress who wrote the welfare provisions into the Social Security Act thought that the need for federal aid to dependent children and poor old people would gradually wither away as employment improved and those over 65 began to collect Social Security pensions. But many Americans, such as farm laborers and domestic servants, were never included in the Social Security old-age retirement program. Also, since 1935, increasing divorce and father desertion rates have dramatically multiplied the number of poor single mothers with dependent children. Since the Great Depression, the national welfare system expanded both in coverage and federal regulations.
Policy analysis (what is it? Why do it?):
Encompasses professional efforts to influence the development, enactment, implementation, modification, or assessment of social policies, primarily to ensure social justice and equal access to basic social goods. An in-depth understanding of policy creation, implementation, and amendments gives social workers insight into what's at stake, for whom, and why. Social workers as mainstream policy actors can make a difference in policy design, implementation, and outcomes; it is the major factor in shaping the practice environment.
The Social Security Act of 1935 and Social Security:
In 1935, Congress passed and Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the "Social Security Act." This law created "a system of Federal old-age benefits" for workers and their families. Title II: Federal Old-Age Benefits=social security (old age insurance from a federal trust fund to provide monthly payments for those retired at 65 and older. Title VIII described the source of funding for the old-age insurance program. Federal taxes paid by the employers and employees. Titles III and IX was a joint federal/state unemployment insurance for workers. Title IV, Grants to States of Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) to cover 1/3 of state's costs to support kids with one caretaker (usually widowed or divorced mother). Title X, Aid to the Blind was half federal and half state funds. Changes in Social Security—1939 amendments in the social security to include survivors of active and retired workers and dependent kids of retired workers. Began paying benefits in 1940 rather than '42; lowered employer taxes from 3 to 2%. 1950—benefits were raised to match old insurance with Old Age Assistance (OAA). 1954—farm and domestic workers were brought into the system and self-employed. 1956—benefits were extended to workers with permanent disability aged 50+ and once they were 65, then they received regular old-age insurance benefits. Disability was linked with retirement (reflecting the equity, or work-related, approach to social insurance). By 1961—all workers could retire with reduced benefits by age 62! 1965—Medicare (for 65+) and Medicaid (those in social security assistance programs and old age assistance). 1975—Tie benefits to rises in the annual cost-of-living adjustments. Extend Medicare coverage to the disabled and transform the jointly funded state-federal OAA into a federally funded Supplemental Security Program (SSI). First crisis in the 80s due to inflation of the 70s was that benefits might exceed incoming tax revenues. Congress and Reagan advanced the retirement age to 67 by 2017; increased payroll tax paid by workers and taxed benefits of people with certain incomes.
Political skills:
Lobbying: is the active purpose, goal -directed planned process of attempting to influence the position of a decision maker usually an elected one. Coalition building: draws together representatives of a variety of groups that have some interests or concern regarding the policy in question; members agree to work together on a particular issue, and the coalition gains its power from the combined efforts of its member organization. Information dissemination: first step is documentation, providing a human face to go with the statistics, giving testimony, provide documentation on to influence the policy making process. Political action campaigns: working to put people in elected office who reflect values and goals consistent with those of social work. (campaigning, political action) Interactional: defined as personal behaviors that promote effective relationships Negotiation & persuasion: involves conversations between two opposing parties that may involve trade-offs, pressure, and accommodation. Involves 4 sets of activities in negotiation Distributive bargaining: is the part of the negotiation process that involves the division of resources; it is the subjective point beyond they are unwilling to go in order to reach an agreement. Integrative bargaining: is where problems are defined, alternate solutions developed and analyzed, and one solution is implemented. Attitudinal structuring: when the parties involved attempt to influence the other's attitude toward the object of bargaining because the attitudes of the parties toward one another significantly affect the process and outcome. Intraorganizational bargaining: bargaining within the organization in order to resolve conflict so that a unified front can be presented at the bargaining table. Analytical skills: includes needs assessment and program evaluation
Levels of social welfare policy:
Micro: is the outcome of translated macro and mezzo level policies into actual services to clients (what individuals such as social workers translate, interpret, and implement. therapeutic services, WIC coupons) Mezzo: (midlevel) Administrative, personnel policy, program rules and regulations that organizations generate to direct and regulate their operations. It is a direct response to macro level policy.(Policy—personnel policy manual) Macro: It is the level where broad laws, regulations, or guidelines that provide the basic framework for the provision of services and benefits are generated. Here the private and nonprofit sector also generates policies to guide efforts to deal with dependency. (Ex: the church) for profit also respond and attempt to influence macro level policies.(Social Security Act regulations)
PRWORA:
On August 22, President Clinton signed into law "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193)," a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform plan that will dramatically change the nation's welfare system into one that requires work in exchange for time-limited assistance. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 fundamentally changed the nation's social welfare system, replacing a federal entitlement program for low-income families, called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), with state-administered block grants, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. PRWORA furthered a trend started earlier in the decade under so called "waiver" programs—state experiments with different types of AFDC rules—toward devolution of design and control of social welfare programs from the federal government to the states. The legislation imposed several new, major requirements on state use of federal welfare funds but otherwise freed states to reconfigure their programs as they want. The underlying goal of the legislation is to decrease dependence on welfare and increase the self-sufficiency of poor families in the United States. Was used to get Congress to enact the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which further reduced aid to the poor, to reduce government deficit spending without coining money.
Medicare:
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the bill that led to the Medicare and Medicaid. The original Medicare program included Part A (Hospital Insurance) and Part B (Medical Insurance). Today these 2 parts are called "Original Medicare." Over the years, Congress has made changes to Medicare: More people have become eligible. For example, in 1972, Medicare was expanded to cover the disabled, people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) requiring dialysis or kidney transplant, and people 65 or older that select Medicare coverage. More benefits, like prescription drug coverage, have been offered. At first, Medicaid gave medical insurance to people getting cash assistance. Today, a much larger group is covered: Low-income families Pregnant women People of all ages with disabilities People who need long-term care States can tailor their Medicaid programs to best serve the people in their state, so there's a wide variation in the services offered. Medicare Part D Prescription Drug benefit The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) made the biggest changes to the Medicare in the program in 38 years. Under the MMA, private health plans approved by Medicare became known as Medicare Advantage Plans. These plans are sometimes called "Part C" or "MA Plans." The MMA also expanded Medicare to include an optional prescription drug benefit, "Part D," which went into effect in 2006. Children's Health Insurance Program The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was created in 1997 to give health insurance and preventive care to nearly 11 million, or 1 in 7, uninsured American children. Many of these children came from uninsured working families that earned too much to be eligible for Medicaid. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have CHIP plans. Affordable Care Act The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought the Health Insurance Marketplace, a single place where consumers can apply for and enroll in private health insurance plans. It also made new ways for us to design and test how to pay for and deliver health care. Medicare and Medicaid have also been better coordinated to make sure people who have Medicare and Medicaid can get quality services.
Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act of 2010:
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed comprehensive health reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, into law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and will create the transformation within the health care system necessary to contain costs. Reforms include new benefits, rights and protections, rules for Insurance Companies, taxes, tax breaks, funding, spending, and the creation of committees, education, new job creation and more. The law spreads risk equally to all insured to end discrimination. New Affordable Choices: Uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will finally have the choice of quality, affordable insurance through a new insurance pool; Small business owners will be eligible for billions in tax credits to help offer insurance coverage to employees; New plans will have to offer preventive care and immunizations at no cost; New plans and certain existing plans that offer dependent coverage will have to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26; A re-insurance program for employers that offer health insurance to their early retirees will save as much as $1,200 for every family enrolled. More Power for Consumers: A new website to help consumers compare different insurance coverage options along with state-by-state health care consumer assistance and ombudsman for any of their health insurance questions; A new independent appeals process for new plans so consumers and patients can appeal insurance company decisions. Insurance Company Accountability: Prohibits new plans and existing group health plans from denying coverage for children because of a pre-existing medical condition; Reviews requested insurance premium increases; health insurers with a pattern of excessive rate increases can be blocked from selling through new insurance exchanges; Removes arbitrary lifetime limits on coverage in all plans, and removes restrictive annual limits on benefits in all new plans and existing group health plans so people know that all of the care they need will be paid for; Prevents insurance companies from dropping insurance coverage when a person gets sick and needs it most.
Bases of allocation:
Selectivity: on the basis of need as determined by means testing of income. Allocation of benefits based on individual economic need. Universal: the availability of benefits is based on eligibility and are a right to everyone. Assumes that all citizens are at risk at one point for common problems (Ex: social security benefits for the elderly and disable). Residual: Means tested, usually for the poor, state and local gov't, seen as an emergency/short term program, Seen as for the "undeserving" (ex: TANF, Medicaid, SNAP - food stamps). Institutional: No time limits, no means testing, usually for non-poor, non-stigmatized usually federal gov't oversight, often seen as insurance and often not perceived as welfare, Seen as for the "deserving". (Social security retirement pension, Disability, widows pension)
HMO Act:
The Health Maintenance Organization Act is informally known as the federal HMO Act is a federal law that provides for a trial federal program to promote and encourage the development of HMOs. The federal HMO Act amended the Public Health Service Act, which Congress passed in 1944.The HMO Act of 1973 helped to cement the HMO into the U.S. health system by providing grants to start or expand HMOs, removing many restrictions imposed by the individual states, and required employers with more than 25 employees to offer a federally-certified HMO to employees. President Richard Nixon signed bill S.14 into law on December 29, 1973 Health Maintenance is a plan for comprehensive health services, prepaid by an individual or by a company for its employees that provides treatment, preventive care, and hospitalization to each participating member in a central health center. Abbreviation: HMO. Origin of health maintenance organization Expand. A health maintenance organization (HMO) is an organization that provides or arranges managed care for health insurance, self-funded health care benefit plans, individuals, and other entities in the United States and acts as a liaison with health care providers (hospitals, doctors, etc.) on a prepaid basis. DEFINITION of 'Health Maintenance Organization - HMO' an organization that provides health coverage with providers under contract. A Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) differs from traditional health insurance by the contracts it has with its providers.
Food Stamps:
The idea for the first FSP is credited to various people, most notably Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace and the program's first Administrator Milo Perkins. The program operated by permitting people on relief to buy orange stamps equal to their normal food expenditures; for every $1 worth of orange stamps purchased, 50 cents worth of blue stamps were received. 1961 - President Kennedy signs his first Executive Order which initiates the food stamp pilot programs. 1964 - President Johnson makes the Food Stamp Program permanent by signing the Food Stamp Act 1974 - The Food Stamp Program expands to all 50 states and territories. 1977 -President Carter signed the Food Stamp Act establishing national standards of eligibility and eliminating the purchase requirements 1984 -Payment using Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) begins with the first EBT transaction purchase in Reading, PA. 2004 -EBT use is adopted nationwide. 2008 - The Food Stamp Program is renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Categorical Types of benefits:
in-kind, cash, services, vouchers (as examples, programs)
TANF:
is a joint federal-state cash assistance program for low-income families with children. When most people think of "welfare," they are thinking of this program. TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which had provided cash welfare to poor families with children since 1935. Under TANF, the federal government provides a block grant to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides temporary financial assistance for pregnant women and families with one or more dependent children. TANF provides financial assistance to help pay for food, shelter, utilities, and expenses other than medical. TANF programs to include providing assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; ending the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; preventing and reducing the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establishing annual numerical goals for the incidence of these pregnancies; and encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. The main stipulations of the policy to achieve these goals include work requirements, a five-year lifetime limit on eligibility for assistance, removal of immigrant populations from eligibility, teen parent provisions that require teens to live with a parent or legal guardian, funding for abstinence education, and illegitimacy bonuses for states that reduce their number of out-of-wedlock births. The cornerstone of this policy is the mandatory work requirements, with strict sanctions for all recipients and the emphasis on "work first," meaning any job is a step to a better job. Work requirements in the new legislation require that individuals must engage in work activities after receiving assistance for twenty-four months.
Dependency
is the state in which a person or household is reliant on government for their income for a prolonged period of time, and without which they would not be able to meet the expenses of daily living. Perceived as not doing the things necessary to be fully functioning contributing members of society.(the proportion which receive more than 50 percent of their total annual income from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.)
Social welfare
the institution in society that deals with the problem of dependency (i.e., the actions in which individuals are not fulfilling social roles like a parent not caring for a child, a person unable to support themselves, child or adult breaking the law).
