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Essay On Deserving

908 Words4 Pages

Everyone has heard the term “welfare queen”- often a young unemployed individual living off of government benefits while treating themselves to frequent luxuries like manicures and smartphones. Despite the myth of the pervasiveness of such individuals, the term brings into question who is deserving of charitable action in the first place. According to Linda Gordon, famed author of Women, the State, and Welfare, this debate in the United States over the obligation of the public to question who is deserving and who is not has lasted for centuries, emphasized in public dialogue in times like the Great Depression and Jim Crow (P13). In response to the Great Depression, the “New Deal” was created by FDR in order to achieve relief, recovery, and reform. This divide between who is deserving and undeserving has been successful in shaping public policy because the benefits for the undeserving pushed those same individuals to seek job opportunities instead of encouraging the poor to see welfare as "free". The philosophy behind the “deserving” and …show more content…

LeLand Poverty in America draws a lot of attention to those who are living in such welfare reliant, immense poverty and crime, below educated, and unfortunate health conditions, leading the poor to be in such isolation that results them to be isolated from mainstream society (p54). As public opinion over welfare increased, public policy began to change. Public opinion thought that if they were giving money to those who already have jobs or money goes to those who could have jobs are unfair in terms of the deserving and undeserving poor. Originally, the program was created to help women get back on track and help support women and their children owing to the fact that women were the main

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