1. Social Welfare in American History

2. FDR
Social Security
Unemployment Insurance

3. Fair Deal - Truman Truman’s Domestic Policy Plan
Problem: Conservative Congress
Passed
Desegregate military: Executive Order 9981
National Housing Act
Raised minimum wage from $.40 to $.75/hr
Tried to implement, but failed
Civil Rights
Weaken segregation
Lynching a federal crime
Outlaw poll tax (not ratified until 1964)
National Health Insurance
Government commitment to full employment
Truman’s domestic policy
Had lofty goals to add progressive reform, but opposition in Congress only allowed for a few changes. He was able to pass…
Desegregate military: Executive Order 9981
National Housing Act
Provided low income housing
Raised minimum wage from $.40 to $.75/hr
Tried to implement the following, but failed…
Weaken segregation
Lynching a federal crime
Outlaw poll tax (not ratified until 1964)
National Health Insurance
Bill to commit the US government to maintain full employment

4. New Frontier - Kennedy Campaign – 1960 - TV
Camelot
Conservative Congress rejected
Education aid, health care support, urban renewal
Success was limited
Modest increase in minimum wage to $1.25/hr
Low income housing building (slum clearance) – created jobs
Manpower Retraining Act – retrain the unemployed
Area Redevelopment Act targeted poor areas like Appalachia
Favored lower taxes on business to allow growth and therefore employment
Campaign – TV
Camelot – the influx of new, young minds in the Kennedy administration were idealists discussing change
Congress was not too keen on passing his ideas: education aid, health care support, urban renewal
Economic downturn in early 60s
Modest increase in minimum wage to $1.25/hr
Increase in Social Security benefits (encourage early retirement)
Low income housing building (slum clearance) – created jobs
Manpower Retraining Act – retrain the unemployed
Area Redevelopment Act targeted poor areas like Appalachia
Favored lower taxes on business to allow growth and therefore employment
Water Pollution Control Act/ Clean Air Act
Women’s Rights
President’s Commission on the Status of Women: Eleanor Roosevelt – examine employment policies in place for women

5. Great Society
Two goals: social reform & elimination of poverty/racial injustice
Democratic Congress
War on Poverty
VISTA – Volunteers in service to America – train poor and illiterate to read and write
Food Stamp Act
Head Start (teach preschool urban kids)
Upward Bound (assisted poor high school kids entering college)
Highway Beautification Act – clean up highways
Medicaid & Medicare
Two goals: social reform & elimination of poverty/racial injustice
Democratic Congress
War on Poverty – Poverty is the bane of society. Drain on economy, malnutrition,
Felt he could get rid of poverty
Civil Rights
Civil Rights Act 1964
Voting Rights Act 1965
War on Poverty
VISTA – Volunteers in service to America – train poor and illiterate to read and write
Food Stamp Act
Head Start (teach preschool urban kids)
Upward Bound (assisted poor high school kids entering college)
Highway Beautification Act – clean up highways
Medicaid & Medicare

6. Nixon & Ford 1972 – Pell Grant
1975 – Earned Income Tax Credit – Low to moderate income tax credit (boosted by Reagan)
A Pell Grant is a subsidy the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree
The earned income tax credit (EITC), first proposed in the early 1970s, was signed by President Ford. It was later substantially expanded by President Reagan, who deemed it “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress”
Originally, the EITC was supposed to be a temporary refundable tax credit for lower-income workers to offset the Social Security payroll tax and rising food and energy prices. The credit was made permanent by the Revenue Act of The EITC was considered both an anti-poverty program and an alternative to welfare because it incentivized work. 

7. Clinton and Obama
1996 – TANF – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
2010 – Affordable Health Care (Obamacare)
The TANF program was created in the 1996 welfare reform legislation and is the successor to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).  The AFDC program had become synonymous with the term welfare and TANF is often thought of in the same way.  
Fueled in part by the increased number of welfare caseloads and the rate of non-marital births, AFDC came under more and more scrutiny.   Critics of the Program argued that it was ineffective at reducing poverty, promoted dependency on the government and encouraged behaviors detrimental to escaping from poverty. Beginning with President Ronald Reagan’s administration and continuing through the first few years of the Clinton administration, growing dissatisfaction with AFDC, particularly the rise in welfare caseloads, led an increasing number of states to seek waivers from AFDC rules to allow states to more stringently enforce work requirements for welfare recipients.
Over this timeframe many states received waivers to adopt various welfare-to-work rules.  As a result, many types of mandatory welfare-to-work programs were evaluated in the early 1990s. While reviews of such programs found that almost all programs led to significant increases in employment and reductions in welfare rolls, there was little evidence that income among former welfare recipients had increased.
In 1992, as a presidential candidate, Bill Clinton pledged to “end welfare as we know it” by requiring families receiving welfare to work after two years After political wrangling with Congress. Provided federal dollars to states to operate the welfare and distribute to whom they saw fit as long as they met the requirements.