Social Work
Chapter Eight: Mental Health and Substance Abuse
There is still a commonly held belief about public assistance that women and families use welfare to pay for all their needs rather than work, and women on welfare continue to have children to receive welfare benefits. According to the text, families receive roughly fifty percent of the minimum amount needed for survival.
Given the data, why do you think this myth persists?
If we assume that poverty is a condition of a competitive, postindustrial society, rather than a problem that has a definite solution, how would this assumption affect the reform or restructuring of the public assistance system? Describe at least three ways public assistance programs and service delivery would change given this assumption.
Do you think that achieving social adequacy should be a critical objective of the welfare system?
Do you think that today’s welfare system has achieved the goal of social adequacy? If not, provide two solutions as to how social adequacy might be achieved.