First, the establishment of American social assistance system.
(A) the historical process of the establishment of American social assistance system
From 65438 to 0929, the United States experienced crisis poverty caused by economic panic and depression. In order to cope with this economic and social change, the government has taken many measures. 1933 President Roosevelt put forward the "New Deal" plan, and the most far-reaching one was the "Social Security Act" passed by Congress in 1935. One of the main contents of the bill is the public assistance plan, which brings women, children, old-age retirement, disability and unemployment compensation into the social welfare system and forms different types of assistance systems. In terms of policy design, the public assistance plan emphasizes the assistance to the "deserving poor", with harsh assistance conditions and obvious punishment principles. From the subject of policy implementation, the responsibility and power of assistance are pushed to the state government; Judging from the consequences of the policy, it has brought a significant social brand to the poor.
/kloc-in the 1960s, with the growth of economy, the strength of national power and the requirements of the civil rights movement, various social welfare systems in the United States began to expand in an all-round way. Different from the poverty caused by the economic crisis in 1930s, the more complicated and diverse structural poverty in 1960s was mainly caused by the change of social structure and industrialized economy, so the solution was more comprehensive and radical. The measures put forward by President Nixon in 1964 "Fighting Poverty" are as follows: First, a civil rights bill that emphasizes "equality" in the hope of eliminating artificial inequality and discrimination; The second is a tax reduction bill that emphasizes "tax reduction" to increase income and improve purchasing power; Third, the economic opportunity bill, which emphasizes "employment", can stimulate potential, create employment opportunities, make everyone (especially the poor) have full and feasible social participation, eliminate poverty and create a "great society". Although the plan of "Fighting Poverty" is designed for a few people, it contains a far-reaching social goal, that is, trying to eliminate poverty not only by helping the poor, but also by eliminating social and environmental obstacles, so as to achieve harmonious social development (Glazer, 1986).
(B) American public assistance system
The social assistance system in the United States includes assistance for the elderly, assistance for the blind, assistance for the disabled and assistance for families with dependent children (hereinafter referred to as AFDC). These policies all need to pass the asset survey, including: first, directly provide money to improve the purchasing power of the poor; The second is to directly provide daily necessities, such as food, shelter and medical care; Third, pay attention to protecting the growing environment of children and adolescents; Fourth, plans related to job creation (Lin trillion, 1994). The social security amendment of 1974 has made significant changes to public assistance, mainly including classified supplementary public assistance into supplementary security income (SSI) and bringing it into the responsibility of the federal government. The public assistance system includes the following items:
1, supplementary safety income (SSI). Including cash payments to the elderly, the blind and the disabled. Although the federal government's subsidy is greater than that of the states, the state governments and local governments still have greater power to decide the subsidy amount, so the subsidies of the states vary greatly, and the federal government and state governments have different subsidies for different objects.
2. Family allowance for dependent children. From 65438 to 0935, the federal government began to take care of dependent families. At that time, President Roosevelt included the aid for dependent children (ADC) in the Social Security Act. ADC experienced two major changes between 196 1 and 1962, both of which were related to family. First, ADC was combined with unemployed parents in 196 1, so that unemployed parents could get help because their families depended on their children. Second, in 1962, ADC was renamed as AFDC, which mainly emphasized that the relief object was family, not children. At the same time, AFDC includes not only cash subsidies, but also medical subsidies, housing subsidies and food stamps.
3. Medicaid. The United States started this project from 1965, mainly to improve the health care of the beneficiaries of public assistance, such as SSI and ADFC. The federal government subsidies account for 50% ~ 80%, which stipulates the scope and qualification requirements of services. State governments can have their own subsidy standards and qualifications.
4. General assistance This plan is aimed at the poor who do not meet the federal subsidy plan, and the states should provide other general assistance to maintain the lives of the poor. Some countries provide direct cash support, while others include medical payment, hospitalization, funeral and other material assistance. This program is also a key project of the national social welfare program.
5. Food subsidy scheme. The food subsidy program includes the following two types: first, food stamps, which are agricultural products provided by the US Department of Agriculture, are used to supplement the nutrition and food needs of low-income people. The poor can use vouchers to buy food, or get food for free, in order to increase their ability to buy food. Second, the supplementary food program for children from low-income families, pregnant women and lactating women, infants and children aims to supplement the nutritional needs of women, children and infants. Usually, coupons are used to provide free food, such as milk, juice, cheese, beans, grains and vouchers for nutritional necessities. In addition, nutritious lunch is also a common complementary food program, which is specially designed for children in schools and institutions.
6. Housing subsidies. Housing subsidies include public housing and rent subsidies. Public houses are free houses for the poor, or low-rent houses. Rent subsidy refers to the indirect payment of rent to the poor according to the Housing and Community Development Law passed in 1974. If the income of the poor is less than 80% of the average income in the region or less than twice the poverty line, they can get rent subsidies. This rescue project needs a lot of money, which is a great financial burden for the federal government.
1problems faced by American social assistance policy in the 1930s and11960s.
There are still many problems to be considered in the process and result of the social assistance system established in the United States in the 1930s and 1960s.
The first is the understanding of poverty. The "New Deal" and the "anti-poverty struggle" basically regard poverty as an unnatural and unnecessary phenomenon. At the same time, they also believe that the unemployment problem of the poor is mainly due to insufficient socio-economic environment stimulation and lack of adequate work preparation. Therefore, the American government takes "labor principle" as the design principle of social assistance system, and firmly believes that poverty can be solved through various public assistance programs.
The second is the goal of social assistance policy. The emergence of social assistance system is more due to social changes and social instability induced by economic development, including racial discrimination, black riots, civil rights movements and so on. Therefore, the social assistance system highlights its political goal of social control, especially in dealing with black poverty.
Third, the social consequences of the social assistance policy, on the one hand, are reflected in the consequences of the social assistance policy itself, such as the new poverty culture, unfair welfare distribution, excessive welfare sector and poverty that belittles low-level employment, on the other hand, the scale of American social problems is too large. Faced with such a huge group of poor people (including working poor people who are not eligible for social assistance), they not only face inequality in economic income, but also face social deprivation ―― such as crime, unemployment of ethnic minorities, family breakdown, illegitimate children and poor living environment. This has also caused other social problems when the American government deals with the social problem of poverty (Wang Shunmin, 1999).
Second, the reform of American social assistance system.
(A) the policy background of American social assistance system reform-the advocacy of the concept of "work welfare".
During the New Deal, the United States began to add relief for the poor to the concept of "work", and President Roosevelt also hoped to help poor families through work plans. The earliest attempt to encourage recipients to work was 1967' s work incentive plan (WIN). It requires all adults receiving welfare to register with WIN, unless there are women, disabled people or patients with children under 6 years old at home. However, due to lack of funds, welfare recipients rarely participate in this plan. 1In the 1980s, the United States revised the relevant laws of WIN, which gave the state government greater flexibility in arranging welfare employment projects. The "Work-for-Welfare Program" is another attempt in the United States, and its principle is: Work-for-Welfare. American scholars have evaluated the above two programs and found that the impact of the programs is moderate, which fails to help people enter general employment (non-subsidized jobs), and many participants still need welfare funds as a supplement to their income. If the value of work is excluded, the operating cost of the plan is higher than the cost of directly paying welfare checks. In other words, from the economic point of view, these schemes are not worth implementing (Gueron, 1996). It can be seen that none of these work-related programs seem to have achieved the expected results.
1988, the US Congress passed the Family Support Act, which was regarded as a thorough reform of the welfare act. It establishes the joint responsibility between welfare institutions and welfare recipients by signing social contracts. According to the Family Support Law, welfare recipients have the obligation to strive for economic independence, and the government has the responsibility to continue to provide income support to eligible families and provide education, training and employment services to welfare recipients through the Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program (JOBS). In addition, the government should provide child care and other support services to support those who are ready and have gone to work. A number of studies in the United States have evaluated this scheme, and found that this labor force addition strategy has indeed increased the employment rate and income, and reduced the number of people using AFDC, but its impact is limited, because 57% of people still remain in the aid system. However, human resources investment strategies such as education and training have saved a little money for ADFC, but after two years of follow-up research, the income and employment of poor people have not increased. American scholars believe that the legislative design of "Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program" is perfect, but it needs the state government to strive to develop and expand education, training and employment services, and allow the state government to maintain its flexibility and particularity, and design a plan suitable for state and local needs. In fact, the biggest obstacle to the implementation of this plan is the lack of funds for related services, especially child care and other support services by the federal and state governments.
In short, during the New Deal, the United States began to add relief for the poor to the concept of "work", and the government has been trying to improve the employment situation of the poor, but with little effect. From 1965 to 1974, the number of people receiving ADFC increased from 4.4 million to 1 1400, an increase of 1. To this end, Carter and Reagan both tried to cut the social welfare budget during their terms of office in order to achieve the goal of eliminating the fiscal deficit budget. The Democratic Party of the United States has always adopted a loose social welfare policy, but it was also determined to reform the social assistance policy at that time during President Clinton's time.
(B) Specific measures for the reform of American social assistance system-forced labor and expansion of state power.
From 65438 to 0996, President Clinton of the United States signed the Reconciliation of Personal Responsibility and Job Opportunities Act, which radically reformed his social assistance system and abolished the synonym of "welfare" which had been implemented for 6 1 year since 1935. This bill, which pays attention to the value of "work" and flaunts the spirit of "self-sufficiency", not only adds "temporary assistance to poor families" (hereinafter referred to as TANF), but also modifies "supplementary safe income", "child support", "medical assistance", "child protection" and "children"
There are two main background factors for increasing TANF: First, the economic development slows down, while the social welfare expenditure increases rapidly, and the welfare population increases rapidly, leading to the federal government's fiscal deficit; The second is the irresponsibility of the "underclass" dominated by African Americans. In this class, men abandon their wives and children, wander the streets, refuse to take the responsibility of supporting their families, and even engage in underground economy and street crimes. Women, adults and girls all have unmarried children and become single mothers. Due to the interruption of education, they lack the corresponding skills and can only rely on government assistance, forming a "welfare dependence" (Wang, 2002). TANF has two policy objectives: one is to advocate the spirit of letting children be taken care of in their own homes; The second is to reduce welfare dependence. TANF has inherited the tradition of "work" in the past 30 years, which has a considerable influence on the recipients of relief funds and state governments.
1, to those who receive benefits-voluntary workers. The influence of TANF on the recipients of relief funds can be observed from the following aspects: First, work: in the TANF scheme, you have to work after receiving relief funds for two years or when you are ready, and the definition of "work" is formulated by each state. The second is to reduce and terminate benefits: if the recipients of benefits do not meet the requirements of "work", the state government can reduce or terminate benefits. According to statistics, 65,438+07 states initially decided to terminate cash benefits as a punishment for those who did not meet the requirements of TANF. Third, few people can be exempted from working: only those single mothers and those headed by minor parents who need to take care of children under one year old can be exempted from working, but they need to receive school education and participate in employment-related education. Fourth, it is required to improve working hours: except for mothers with children under 6 years old, the working hours of adult welfare recipients have been greatly improved. 1997, the whole family only needed to work 20 hours a week, in 2000, it needed to work 30 hours, and the two-parent family needed to work 35 hours. Fifth, child care is not guaranteed: in the TANF plan, the state government believes that single mothers still need to work even if they can't find a child care provider or can't afford the child care fee, which puts some mothers in a dilemma of both cooperating with the requirements of the state government and providing sufficient child care time.
2. To implement the social assistance policy-expanding state power.
(1) In terms of financial support, the funding sources of TANF are different from those of the ADFC era. In the past, for every/kloc-0 yuan spent by the state government, the matching funds spent by the federal government were about 4 yuan, and the matching funds would fully consider the economic situation of each state. However, in TANF's scheme, the federal government subsidizes the package, and if the state government wants to spend more money, it needs to find its own way. At the same time, the federal government's parcel funds have three conditions: first, the funds of TANF cannot be used to provide families receiving five-year welfare, that is to say, the funds of TANF can only provide five-year welfare payment for each family at most; Second, the state government needs to have its own expenditure, that is, when accepting the funding from the federal government of TANF, the state government itself should also have a corresponding budget; Third, the state government has the responsibility to help people who receive TANF benefits abide by the rules of taking part in work.
(2) With regard to the improvement of work participation rate: In addition to increasing working hours, the participation rate required by TANF is: 1997, which is 25%, increasing by 5% every year, reaching 50% in 2002, and 75% in vulnerable families and 1998.
(3) Increase the rate of participation in work activities: adults receiving welfare must take part in work two years after receiving welfare. According to the estimation of the Congressional Budget Office, by 2002, about 70% of welfare recipients had received relief for two years or more, and they should take part in work activities. If the state government fails to meet the requirements of the participation rate, it will face a 5% reduction in land subsidies in the first year, and then increase by 2% every year, with a cumulative reduction of 2 1%.
(4) The state government needs to design more welfare employment projects. TANF restricts many educational programs because they are considered as welfare employment programs. The acceptable work items of TANF include: non-subsidized employment, subsidized private or public employment, community service, on-the-job training, job hunting and job preparation projects.
(B) Discussion and evaluation of the TANF plan in the reform of American social assistance system.
1. on the issue of labor strategy: TANF pays more attention to the extra labor strategy in welfare employment, rather than using the human resources investment strategy. TANF obviously ignores some important research results, which show that graduation from high school and any education after high school, even a one-year college, will increase the possibility of leaving welfare, reduce the possibility of returning to welfare system and significantly reduce poverty.
2. About the effectiveness of this project. The TANF plan itself does not mention any questions about the effectiveness of the participants after work. Can welfare recipients really get non-subsidized employment opportunities after they join the work? Although the federal government has provided a lot of funds for TANF, there are no requirements and regulations on the results of the project. The state government is interested in the measurement results and will continue to develop methods for measuring the results. However, in order to ensure the responsibility of the federal government and obtain the effectiveness of the national TANF in promoting employment and economic autonomy, the goals and effectiveness of the federal government are needed.
3. Relief for women and children. According to the research of the American government statistics department, the obstacles faced by single-parent families headed by women in getting rid of poverty are as follows: first, even if they work full-time, they are often fired because of low wages and no benefits or interrupted for other reasons; Second, the high cost of childcare and other factors often make female single parents close to or below the poverty line. Childcare expenses account for 265,438+0% ~ 25% of their income. In recent years, there are two legislative measures in the United States that may help low-income families: one is to raise the minimum wage to $5.65438 +05 per hour; Second, the reform of income tax law, namely "EIC", has been greatly improved. This measure is specially designed for low-income families, that is, expanding the scope of tax refund through the federal system, including offsetting social security tax to compensate for low wages. In addition, there are food stamps, children's tax subsidies and children's medical care package subsidies to help children from uninsured and low-income families.
Third, the conclusion
Based on the establishment of American social assistance system, this paper focuses on the background and content of its policy formulation and reform. From it, we can see that the motive force of its social assistance policy reform is that the United States gradually realizes that the original policy has no job requirements, only emphasizes power and ignores the obligations behind power, resulting in welfare dependence, and needs to change to "work welfare" that emphasizes the value of work to help the poor get rid of poverty. Another school of scholars, whose goal is to help the poor get rid of poverty, also advocates that the welfare model based on "assets" accumulation should replace the welfare model based on "income". The policy of "property accumulation" criticizes that the previous aid policies only focused on income and consumption, but not on getting rid of poverty through property accumulation, and points out that low-income people not only have relatively low income, but also their families' ability to accumulate property and total value are relatively low, which leads to the worsening poverty situation of low-income households (Sherrade, 199 1). But in my opinion, no matter how the scheme is designed, we can't ignore that the minimum purpose of social assistance is to help individuals and families get rid of poverty. For individuals and families who are completely incapable of working, such as the old, the weak and the disabled, income-based policies are still the most important. For poor individuals and families who have the ability to work, in addition to providing income-based welfare model, the welfare model with property accumulation may actively help individuals and families get rid of poverty.