Welfare Programs In African Americans

Words: 1964
Pages: 8

Current welfare programs promote financial illiteracy instead of teaching minority groups financial independence. The way current welfare programs are set up, maintained the overwhelming financial illiteracy in the black community. By preventing the black community from developing in one’s financial ability, it makes participation in the welfare system more detrimental than beneficial. By leaving individuals ignorant about how to manage funds and allocate spending, an endless cycle develops and the individuals receiving these benefits continue to use the welfare system. Because of this lack of education, even when individuals leave programs related to the welfare system they are more likely to end up even more impoverished then they were while …show more content…
Because of states maintain the ability to develop more specific observation of their welfare demographic, they can develop sanctions that prevent minority groups from receiving resources easily. The welfare dense areas are often very unstable and underserved by the state. The racism in the welfare system works to use the advantage of state controlled welfare systems to deny minority groups of resources. “American University political science professor Joe Soss found welfare reform sanctions to be particularly harsh in states with large numbers of African-American or Latino/a residents. An article in The Chicago Reporter revealed that in Illinois, while whites are likely to leave the welfare rolls because job earnings render them ineligible, African Americans are more likely to be sanctioned off the rolls”. What is happening in Chicago displays how easily it is to adjust statutes to deprive resources based on the demographic of those applying to said resources. If government benefits were set in place to help citizens in need, there should be no possibility of an individual being able to not receive resources based solely on technicalities of …show more content…
While no potential solutions will offer an end to the overwhelming amount of racism in the United States, there are some options that could help the welfare system actually accomplish its intended purpose. One possible solution is the universalization of the welfare system. The specificity of state jurisdiction in the welfare system allows for more specialized oppression and a more focused view of where the black population is and how to manipulate the system to deprive them of resources. There also needs to be a change in the face of welfare. If black Americans are constantly portrayed as lazy “welfare queens” there will continue to be a lack of respect and success in the dispersal of welfare. Once the government switched the focus of welfare from restriction to rehabilitation, the people of color who chose to access these resources will have an enhanced quality of