Welfare

Welfare

Welfare is financial assistance paid by taxpayers to people who are unable to support themselves. Some welfare is general, while specific and can only be invoked under certain circumstances, such as a scholarship. Welfare payments can be made to individuals or to companies or entities--these latter payments are often considered corporate welfare.

Individuals may apply for welfare due to disability, lack of education or job training, a low demand for unskilled labor, substance abuse, or an unwillingness to work. Assistance may also take the form of other relief, such as tax credits for working mothers.

Welfare is known by a variety of names in different countries, all with the avowed purpose of providing an economic or social safety net for disadvantaged members of society. Almost all developed nations provide some kind of safety net of this kind; nations where such programs are especially prominent are known as welfare states.

The desired outcome and purpose of welfare varies. For welfare for the non-disabled, the purpose often is to prevent complete destitution. Welfare or assistance for the disabled, in contrast, does not eventually expect non-dependency, and the justification is more philosophical.


"Corporate welfare," usually in the form of favorable tax policy, is sometimes used in order to provide capital to an industry that the government perceives needs financial assistance in order to survive or to expand, or which the government wishes to support for political or economic purposes.

Some of these ideal outcomes and purposes, as well as welfare's effectiveness have been challenged by political lobbies such as those who oppose big government and "forced charity", such as minarchists or libertarians.

The amounts paid to recipients are typically modest, and may fall below the poverty line. Recipients must usually demonstrate a low level of income such as by way of "means testing", or financial hardship, or that they satisfy some other requirement such as childcare responsibilities or disability.

Those receiving unemployment benefits may also have to regularly demonstrate that they are periodically searching for employment. Some countries assign specific jobs to recipients who must work in these roles in order for welfare payments to continue. In the United States and Canada, such programs are known as workfare.



Welfare in the United States

Welfare services in the United States have traditionally been more limited than those in European nations. As one author writes, "compared with most other rich capitalist societies, the American welfare state is more market-conforming."[4]

Welfare assistance of various kinds is provided in the United States partly by the federal government and partly by state governments. Federal welfare and public assistance spending is provided by federal government agencies, such as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Department of Health and Human Services, through special programs to recipients.

In the United States, personal welfare is normally given to households with children, often headed by single mothers. Since the landmark federal welfare reform act in 1996 (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), individual recipients are limited to a lifetime maximum of five years cumulative for receiving federal welfare of all types.[5] Before 1997, United States personal welfare for households with children was first named Aid to Dependent Children, which was later called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).[6]. It was administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

In 1996-97 as part of welfare reform, AFDC was replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which included more limits on the amount of time an individual or family can receive welfare.[7] Since 1996, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has largely replaced AFDC as the primary anti-poverty program in the United States[8].

While not termed "welfare" in the USA, there are a variety of other personal transfer payments which are financial assistance programs; examples of such transfer payments are unemployment compensation (which, unlike welfare, is not means-tested and is prepaid by employees before job loss) and tobacco taxes, part of which are disbursed for hospital care for the needy (as well as the general public).

With regard to personal welfare for individuals without children, most U.S. states had been providing welfare or assistance benefits to single adults and childless married couples since the Great Depression, but the number of states doing so declined steeply during the 1990s, and many of the states that still provide such benefits use methods other than cash payments to render the assistance. For example, many California counties currently provide only vouchers.

At present, only a few states — New Jersey, Utah and Minnesota among them — still provide cash benefits to poverty-stricken adults who do not have child dependents. These programs were often known officially by such names as Home Relief, General Assistance, or General Relief.


History of welfare

There is relatively little statistical data on welfare transfer payments until at least the High Middle Ages. In the medieval period and until the Industrial Revolution, the function of welfare payments in Europe was principally achieved through private giving or charity. In those early times there was a much broader group considered in poverty compared to the 21st century.

Early welfare programs included the English Poor Law of 1601, which gave parishes the responsibility for providing welfare payments to the poor[9]. This system was substantially modified by the nineteenth-century Poor Law Amendment Act, which introduced the system of workhouses.

It was predominantly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that an organized system of state welfare provision was introduced in many countries. Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, introduced one of the first welfare systems for the working classes. In Great Britain the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and David Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance system in 1911[10], a system later expanded by Clement Attlee. The United States did not have an organized welfare system until the Great Depression, when emergency relief measures were introduced under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even then, Roosevelt's New Deal focused predominantly on a programme of providing work and stimulating the economy through public spending on projects, rather than on cash payments.

In the late twentieth century, a perception grew that existing welfare systems were becoming excessively bureaucratic and inefficient. The United States Social Security system has come under particular criticism, and many political figures, such as George W. Bush, have argued for a more work-based system of welfare provision.


See also

Poverty

Financial aid

Aid

Welfare fraud

Welfare trap

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or CDC) is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services based in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia adjacent to the campus of Emory University and east of the city of Atlanta. It works to protect public health and the safety of people, by providing information to enhance health decisions, and promotes health through partnerships with state health departments and other organizations.

The CDC focuses national attention on developing and applying disease prevention and control (especially infectious diseases), environmental health, occupational safety and health, health promotion, prevention and education activities designed to improve the health of the people of the United States.


Health protection goals

CDC is committed to achieving true improvements in people’s health. To do so, the agency is defining specific health impact goals to prioritize and focus its work and investments and measure progress.


Healthy people in every stage of life

All people, and especially those at greater risk of health disparities, will achieve their optimal lifespan with the best possible quality of health in every stage of life.

Start Strong: Increase the number of infants and toddlers that have a strong start for healthy and safe lives. (Infants and Toddlers, ages 0-3 years).

Grow Safe and Strong: Increase the number of children who grow up healthy, safe, and ready to learn. (Children, ages 4-11 years).

Achieve Healthy Independence: Increase the number of adolescents who are prepared to be healthy, safe, independent, and productive members of society. (Adolescents, ages 12-19 years).

Live a Healthy, Productive, and Satisfying Life: Increase the number of adults who are healthy and able to participate fully in life activities and enter their later years with optimum health. (Adults, ages 20-49 years).

Live Better, Longer: Increase the number of older adults who live longer, high-quality, productive, and independent lives. (Older Adults, ages 50 and over).


Healthy people in healthy places

The places where people live, work, learn, and play will protect and promote their health and safety, especially those at greater risk of health disparities.

Healthy Communities: Increase the number of communities that protect, and promote health and safety and prevent illness and injury in all their members.

Healthy Homes: Protect and promote health through safe and healthy home environments.

Healthy Schools: Increase the number of schools that protect and promote the health, safety and development of all students, and protect and promote the health and safety of all staff. (e.g. – healthy food vending, physical activity programs).

Healthy Workplaces: Promote and protect the health and safety of people who work by preventing workplace-related fatalities, illnesses, injuries, and personal health risks.

Healthy Healthcare Settings: Increase the number of healthcare settings that provide safe, effective, and satisfying patient care.

Healthy Institutions: Increase the number of institutions that provide safe, healthy, and equitable environments for their residents, clients or inmates.

Healthy Travel and Recreation: Ensure that environments enhance health and prevent illness and injury during travel and recreation.


People prepared for emerging health threats

People in all communities will be protected from infectious, occupational, environmental, and terrorist threats. Preparedness goals will address scenarios that include natural and intentional threats. The first round of these scenarios will encompass influenza, anthrax, plague, emerging infections, toxic chemical exposure, and radiation exposure. Increase the use and development of interventions known to prevent human illness from chemical, biological, radiological agents, and naturally occurring health threats.

Decrease the time needed to classify health events as terrorism or naturally occurring in partnership with other agencies.

Decrease the time needed to detect and report chemical, biological, radiological agents in tissue, food or environmental samples that cause threats to the public’s health.
Improve the timeliness and accuracy of communications regarding threats to the public’s health.

Event

Decrease the time to identify causes, risk factors, and appropriate interventions for those affected by threats to the public’s health.

Decrease the time needed to provide countermeasures and health guidance to those affected by threats to the public’s health.

Post-Event

Decrease the time needed to restore health services and environmental safety to pre-event levels.

Improve the long-term follow-up provided to those affected by threats to the public’s health.
Decrease the time needed to implement recommendations from after-action reports following threats to the public’s health.


Healthy people in a healthy world

People around the world will live safer, healthier and longer lives through health promotion, health protection, and health diplomacy.

Health Promotion: Global health will improve by sharing knowledge, tools and other resources with people and partners around the world.

Health Protection: Americans at home and abroad will be protected from health threats through a transnational prevention, detection and response network.

Health Diplomacy: CDC and the United States Government will be a trusted and effective resource for health development and health protection around the globe.



Structure

CDC is one of the major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services. CDC's major organizational components respond individually in their areas of expertise and pool their resources and expertise on cross-cutting issues and specific health threats. The agency comprises these major organizational components:

Office of the Director manages and directs the activities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; provides overall direction to, and coordination of, the scientific/medical programs of CDC; and provides leadership, coordination, and assessment of administrative management activities.

The CDC is under the direction of Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H. Dr. Gerberding has been the director of the CDC since July 2002.[1]


Coordinating Center for Environmental Health and Injury Prevention

National Center for Environmental Health/ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH-ATSDR) provides national leadership in preventing and controlling disease and death resulting from the interactions between people and their environment.

CDC performs many of the administrative functions for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a sister agency of CDC, and one of eight federal public health agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Director of CDC also serves as the Administrator of ATSDR.

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) prevents death and disability from non occupational injuries, including those that are unintentional and those that result from violence.


Coordinating Center for Health Information and Services

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) provides statistical information that guides actions and policies to improve the health of the American people.

National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) provides national leadership in the application of information technology in the pursuit of public health.

National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM) provides national leadership in health marketing science and in its application to impact public health.


Coordinating Center for Health Promotion

National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) provides national leadership for preventing birth defects and developmental disabilities and for improving the health and wellness of people with disabilities.

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) prevents premature death and disability from chronic diseases and promotes healthy personal behaviors.

National Office of Public Health Genomics provides national leadership in fostering understanding of human genomic discoveries and how they can be used to improve health and prevent disease.


Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases

National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) prevents illness, disability, and death caused by infectious diseases in the United States and around the world.

National Immunization Program (NIP) prevents disease, disability, and death from vaccine-preventable diseases in children and adults.

National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHSTP) provides national leadership in preventing and controlling human immunodeficiency virus infection, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis.

Coordinating Office for Global Health provides national leadership, coordination, and support for CDC’s global health activities in collaboration with CDC’s global health partners.

Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response provides strategic direction for the Agency to support terrorism preparedness and emergency response efforts.


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

NIOSH ensures safety and health for all people in the workplace through research and prevention.

Budget and workforce

CDC’s budget for 2008 is $8.8 billion. Today the staff numbers nearly 15,000 (including 6,000 contractors and 840 Commissioned Corps officers) in 170 occupations. Engineers, entomologists, epidemiologists, biologists, physicians, veterinarians, behaviorial scientists, nurses, medical technologists, economists, health communicators, toxicologists, chemists, computer scientists, and statisticians—to name only a few—each are dedicated to the pursuit of public health.

CDC is headquartered in DeKalb County, Georgia, but it has 10 other locations in the United States and Puerto Rico. Those locations include Anchorage, Alaska; Cincinnati, Ohio; Fort Collins, Colorado; Hyattsville, Maryland; Morgantown, West Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Spokane, Washington; and Washington, D.C. In addition, CDC staff are located in state and local health agencies, quarantine/border health offices at ports of entry, and 45 countries around the world, from Angola to Zimbabwe.

The work force is diverse and well qualified. More than a third of CDC’s employees are members of a racial or ethnic minority group, and women account for nearly 60 percent of CDC’s workforce. Nearly 40 percent of employees have a master’s degree; 25 percent have a Ph.D.; and 10 percent have medical degrees. The average age of a CDC worker is 46.
The CDC campus in Atlanta houses facilities for the research of extremely dangerous biological agents. This setting was well represented in the Dustin Hoffman film Outbreak, although the location depicted in the film was supposed to be the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases bio-research facility. The CDC labs also figure prominently in the book "The Demon in the Freezer" by Richard Preston and "Virus Hunter" by C.J. Peters, former head of the Special Pathogens Branch at the CDC.

The CDC also conducts the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the world’s largest, on-going telephone health survey system.[2]


CDC timeline

CDC Timeline


Data and survey systems

CDC Scientific Data, Surveillance, Health Statistics, and Laboratory Information.[3]

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.[4]

Mortality Medical Data System.[5]