Chapter 3:4: Safety Nets

Chapter 3:4: Safety Nets

OBJECTIVES Students will learn the government role in addressing issues of those who are in poverty. Students will analyze possible solutions in addressing poverty both through the government and through the private sector.

Deu_24:14 Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:

THE POVERTY PROBLEM Poverty threshold, an income level below that which is needed to support families. It is determined by the Federal government and adjusted periodically. The U.S. Bureau of the Census part of the Department of Labor sets the poverty threshold. It sets it at different levels, depending on the number of family members and their ages. Each year, the poverty threshold is adjusted based on the cost of the goods a family needs to buy. As prices rise, so does the poverty threshold.

THE GOVERNMENT ROLE The government tries to provide a safety net for people in these groups, with help from various federal, state, and local governments programs. These programs aim to raise people s standard of living, or their level of economic well-being are measured by the ability to purchase the goods and services they need and want.

THE WELFARE SYSTEM: Since the 1930s, the main government effort to ease poverty has been to collect taxes from individuals and redistribute some of those funds in the form of welfare. Welfare is a general term that refers to government aid for the poor. It includes many types of programs that redistribute wealth from some people to others.

New deal and War on Poverty: Critics of welfare voiced increasing concern about people dependent on welfare and being unable or unwilling to get off. There is a call for reform.

Redistribution Programs: Cash Transfers: State and governments provide cash transfers, direct payments of money to poor disabled or retired people. Social Security, unemployment Insurance, and workers Compensation are examples. In-Kind benefits: Government provides poor people with in-kind benefits, good and services provide for free or at greatly reduced prices.

Redistribution Programs: Food stamp programs. Subsidizing housing. Poor people are allowed to rent housing for less regular rent. The government pays the difference to the landlord. Public defenders represent those who can t afford an attorney.

Redistribution Programs: Medical Benefits: Government provides health insurance for the elderly such as Medicare and Medicaid and Obamacare to provide medical insurance for those who did not traditionally have access to it.

Redistribution Programs: Education: Federal, state, and local governments all provide educational opportunities to those who need aid. The Federal government funds programs from preschool to college. State and local programs aid students with learning disabilities. Education programs add to the nation s human capital and labor productivity producing a qualified labor pool.

Encouraging Private Action: In addition to provide direct assistance to the needy, federal and state governments also encourage private action. Federal tax laws allows both individuals and corporations to take tax deductions for charitable donations. This policy provides an economic incentive to give money and property to relief organizations as well as other nonprofit groups such as churches. The government also may provide grants and other assistance to organize that provide social services. A grant is financial award given by a government agency to a private individual or group in order to carry out a specific task.

Spiritual Solution To Poverty There are not many, even among educators and statesmen, who comprehend the causes that underlie the present state of society. Those who hold the reins of government are not able to solve the problem of moral corruption, poverty, pauperism, and increasing crime. They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a more secure basis. If men would give more heed to the teaching of God's word, they would find a solution of the problems that perplex them. {9T 13.3}

Spiritual Solution To Poverty We are all woven together in the great web of humanity, and whatever we can do to benefit and uplift others will reflect in blessing upon ourselves. The law of mutual dependence runs through all classes of society. {CSA 62.8}

Spiritual Solution To Poverty If men today were simple in their habits, living in harmony with nature's laws, as did Adam and Eve in the beginning, there would be an abundant supply for the needs of the human family. There would be fewer imaginary wants, and more opportunities to work in God's ways. But selfishness and the indulgence of unnatural taste have brought sin and misery into the world, from excess on the one hand, and from want on the other. {DA 367.1}

Spiritual Solution To Poverty In the professed Christian world enough is expended for jewels and needlessly expensive dress to feed all the hungry and to clothe the naked. Fashion and display absorb the means that might comfort the poor and the suffering.{mh 287.4}

Spiritual Solution To Poverty Real charity helps men to help themselves. If one comes to our door and asks for food, we should not turn him away hungry; his poverty may be the result of misfortune. But true beneficence means more than mere gifts. It means a genuine interest in the welfare of others. We should seek to understand the needs of the poor and distressed, and to give them the help that will benefit them most. To give thought and time and personal effort costs far more than merely to give money. But it is the truest charity. {CSA 62.3}

Spiritual Solution To Poverty Attention should be given to the establishment of various industries so that poor families can find employment. Carpenters, blacksmiths, and indeed everyone who understands some line of useful labor, should feel a responsibility to teach and help the ignorant and the unemployed. {CSA 62.4}

Spiritual Solution To Poverty Those who are taught to earn what they receive will more readily learn to make the most of it. And in learning to be self-reliant, they are acquiring that which will not only make them self-sustaining, but will enable them to help others. {CSA 62.6}

The Lord would place a check upon the inordinate love of property and power. Great evils would result from the continued accumulation of wealth by one class, and the poverty and degradation of another. Without some restraint the power of the wealthy would become a monopoly, and the poor, though in every respect fully as worthy in God s sight, would be regarded and treated as inferior to their more prosperous brethren. The sense of this oppression would arouse the passions of the poorer class. There would be a feeling of despair and desperation which would tend to demoralize society and open the door to crimes of every description. The regulations that God established were designed to promote social equality. The provisions of the sabbatical year and the jubilee would, in a great measure, set right that which during the interval had gone wrong in the social and political economy of the nation." (Patriarchs & Prophets, p. 534)

Discussion Question o List five solutions or programs you would implement to combat poverty.