How and why did people survive before the U.S. government took the job of handing out free money to those who could document need ?


There it is, one simple question, please try to stay on topic for at least one page.......

Those less fortunate didn't. Before social security the leading cause of death for the elderly was starvation in the summer and freezing to death in the winter.

end of thread

Ya right !

So I guess the human population only started growing after the invent of free money for those who ask ?

Technology gets no credit ?

Next !

The human population does in fact grow exponentially.

get over it, you're a complete mule.

Thanks for the nice reply stam62, you are right the taxes I pay isn't stopping me, but we are talking about things which could be improved and how to do it...or grumbling. <grin>

Oh, and by the way, in case you are unaware(my first guess) the elderly tend to not have new borns.

When was the last time you saw someone in a wheel chair dragging bowline behind a cat?? You got work that you can't find people for? There are no people deserving of help? So, maybe you should go troll the retirement homes for laborers or even intensive care units, they can work off their debts tothe hospitals.

fishpolelease, let's get one thing strait...

We appearantly both have strong feelings about what is right and wrong, I am willing to listen to your point of view, but you don't really get around to explaining why you feel the way you do, I may not have as great a grasp on the English language as some on this board, but I am willing to hammer out my feelings a couple of fingers at a time, you can laugh at my ignorance or make up stupid names to call me, but that doesn't give me a great impression of your thinking process...

Here's a little cut and paste info:


CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATION
Bill of Rights in Action
Summer 1998 (14:3)


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Welfare
In 1996, Congress passed and the president signed into law a massive overhaul of our nation's welfare system. This Bill of Rights in Action focuses on welfare. The first article examines how welfare developed in this country. The second article explores the new welfare reform act. The third article takes a look at the Swedish welfare state.
U.S. History: How Welfare Began in the United States

U.S. Government: Welfare to Work: The States Take Charge

U.S. History: "The Swedish Model": Welfare for Everyone




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This issue of the Bill of Rights in Action is made possible by a generous grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation.

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How Welfare Began in the United States
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, local and state governments as well as private charities were overwhelmed by needy families seeking food, clothing, and shelter. In 1935, welfare for poor children and other dependent persons became a federal government responsibility, which it remained for 60 years.
MINNEAPOLIS—Several hundred men and women in an unemployed demonstration today stormed a grocery store and meat market in the Gateway district, smashed plate glass windows and helped themselves to bacon and ham, fruit and canned goods.

—from the New York Times, February 26, 1931

The 1920s in America seemed like an age of endless prosperity. Construction boomed, business flourished, and the stock market soared. Then on October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed. The crash sent shockwaves throughout the economy. Banks failed. Businesses closed. Millions found themselves out of work. The Great Depression, which would last through the 1930s, had begun.

When the Great Depression began, about 18 million elderly, disabled, and single mothers with children already lived at a bare subsistence level in the United States. State and local governments together with private charities helped these people. By 1933, another 13 million Americans had been thrown out of work. Suddenly, state and local governments and charities could no longer provide even minimum assistance for all those in need. Food riots broke out. Desertions by husbands and fathers increased. Homeless families in cities lived in public parks and shanty towns. Desperate times began to put into question the old American notion that if a man worked hard enough, he could always take care of himself and his family.

The effect of the Depression on poor children was particularly severe. Grace Abbott, head of the federal Children's Bureau, reported that in the spring of 1933, 20 percent of the nation's school children showed evidence of poor nutrition, housing, and medical care. School budgets were cut and in some cases schools were shut down for lack of money to pay teachers. An estimated 200,000 boys left home to wander the streets and beg because of the poor economic condition of their families.

Most elderly Americans did not have personal savings or retirement pensions to support them in normal times, let alone during a national economic crisis. Those few able to set aside money for retirement often found that their savings and investments had been wiped out by the financial crash in 1929. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois made this observation in 1936:

The impact of all these forces increasingly convinced the majority of the American people that individuals could not by themselves provide adequately for their old age, and that some form of greater security should be provided by society.
Even skilled workers, business owners, successful farmers, and professionals of all kinds found themselves in severe economic difficulty as one out of four in the labor force lost their jobs. Words like "bewildered," "shocked," and "humiliated," were often used at the time to describe increasing numbers of Americans as the Depression deepened.
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt focused mainly on creating jobs for the masses of unemployed workers, he also backed the idea of federal aid for poor children and other dependent persons. By 1935, a national welfare system had been established for the first time in American history.

Welfare Before the Depression

A federal welfare system was a radical break from the past. Americans had always prided themselves on having a strong sense of individualism and self-reliance. Many believed that those who couldn't take care of themselves were to blame for their own misfortunes. During the 19th century, local and state governments as well as charities established institutions such as poorhouses and orphanages for destitute individuals and families. Conditions in these institutions were often deliberately harsh so that only the truly desperate would apply.

Local governments (usually counties) also provided relief in the form of food, fuel, and sometimes cash to poor residents. Those capable were required to work for the town or county, often at hard labor such as chopping wood and maintaining roads. But most on general relief were poor dependent persons not capable of working: widows, children, the elderly, and the disabled.

Local officials decided who went to the poorhouse or orphanage and who would receive relief at home. Cash relief to the poor depended on local property taxes, which were limited. Also, not only did a general prejudice exist against the poor on relief, but local officials commonly discriminated against individuals applying for aid because of their race, nationality, or religion. Single mothers often found themselves in an impossible situation. If they applied for relief, they were frequently branded as morally unfit by the community. If they worked, they were criticized for neglecting their children.

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt called a White House conference on how to best deal with the problem of poor single mothers and their children. The conference declared that preserving the family in the home was preferable to placing the poor in institutions, which were widely criticized as costly failures.

Starting with Illinois in 1911, the "mother's pension" movement sought to provide state aid for poor fatherless children who would remain in their own homes cared for by their mothers. In effect, poor single mothers would be excused from working outside the home. Welfare reformers argued that the state pensions would also prevent juvenile delinquency since mothers would be able to supervise their children full-time.

By 1933, mother's pension programs were operating in all but two states. They varied greatly from state to state and even from county to county within a state. In 1934, the average state grant per child was $11 a month. Administered in most cases by state juvenile courts, mother's pensions mainly benefitted families headed by white widows. These programs excluded large numbers of divorced, deserted, and minority mothers and their children.

Few private and government retirement pensions existed in the United States before the Great Depression. The prevailing view was that individuals should save for their old age or be supported by their children. About 30 states provided some welfare aid to poor elderly persons without any source of income. Local officials generally decided who deserved old-age assistance in their community.

A National Welfare System

The emphasis during the first two years of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" was to provide work relief for the millions of unemployed Americans. Federal money flowed to the states to pay for public works projects, which employed the jobless. Some federal aid also directly assisted needy victims of the Depression. The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called "unemployables" (widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled). But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were declining steeply.

In his State of the Union Address before Congress on January 4, 1935, President Roosevelt declared, "the time has come for action by the national government" to provide "security against the major hazards and vicissitudes [uncertainties] of life." He went on to propose the creation of federal unemployment and old-age insurance programs. He also called for guaranteed benefits for poor single mothers and their children along with other dependent persons.
By permanently expanding federal responsibility for the security of all Americans, Roosevelt believed that the necessity for government make-work employment and other forms of Depression relief would disappear. In his address before Congress, Roosevelt argued that the continuation of government relief programs was a bad thing for the country:
The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. . . .
A few months later, on August 18, 1935, Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. It set up a federal retirement program for persons over 65, which was financed by a payroll tax paid jointly by employers and their workers. FDR believed that federal old-age pensions together with employer-paid unemployment insurance (also a part of the Social Security Act) would provide the economic security people needed during both good and bad times.
In addition to old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, the Social Security Act established a national welfare system. The federal government guaranteed one-third of the total amount spent by states for assistance to needy and dependent children under age 16 (but not their mothers). Additional federal welfare aid was provided to destitute old people, the needy blind, and crippled children. Although financed partly by federal tax money, the states could still set their own eligibility requirements and benefit levels. This part of the law was pushed by Southern states so they could control the coverage made available to their African-American population.

This is how welfare began as a federal government responsibility. Roosevelt and the members of Congress who wrote the welfare provisions into the Social Security Act thought that the need for federal aid to dependent children and poor old people would gradually wither away as employment improved and those over 65 began to collect Social Security pensions. But many Americans, such as farm laborers and domestic servants, were never included in the Social Security old-age retirement program. Also, since 1935, increasing divorce and father desertion rates have dramatically multiplied the number of poor single mothers with dependent children.

Since the Great Depression, the national welfare system expanded both in coverage and federal regulations. From its inception, the system drew critics. Some complained that the system did not do enough to get people to work. Others simply believed the federal government should not administer a welfare system. As the system grew, so did criticism of it, especially in the 1980s and '90s.

In 1992, candidate Bill Clinton, a Democrat, ran for president promising to "end welfare as we know it." In 1996, a Republican Congress passed and President Clinton signed a reform law that returned most control of welfare back to the states, thus ending 61 years of federal responsibility.

For Discussion and Writing

1. How did needy Americans get help before 1900?

2. Why did most states adopt "mother's pension" programs after 1910? In what ways were these pensions sometimes administered unfairly?

3. Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt view the Social Security Act's welfare provisions helping needy children and other dependent persons as permanent or temporary? Explain FDR's reasoning on this matter.

I think it is safe to say that any temporary releif efforts of the Great Depression have run their course....whether they were effective or not.

Yeah, let's get it straight right now.

I grew up in poverty, as did everyone in my family. My grandfather is 100% kalpuya, a band of the northern paiute (he has never once gillnetted a salmon). I was raised by a single mother until I was eight years old, who never once drew welfare because the conditions back then to get a check was for welfare to take your child as a ward of the state until the mother could afford it (although we were poor, she still loved me more than anything). It was out of her control to not continue with her marriage after my birth and she also never collected a dime of child support. I've spent time in daycares. I have gone without food and shelter for periods of time, having to live with other poor relatives at times until my mother could break her way into the laborers union to get a decent sustainable wage, I have fought off rats in my bedspace. I have family members with birth defects that will never be able to make a wage for themselves and have noone in the family with enough money to cover the constant medical bills, which get into the hundreds of thousands regularly. Nobody plans on being in poverty, and sometimes it takes decades to fight your way out. My family has been working hard, very hard, for generations to build a better life for their children than the ones they grew up in. I have been working for as long as I can remember and in my teens it was pretty much required if I wanted new clothes for school, not to mention a car or gear for intramural sports or even extra money to buy fishing gear so I could get out and bring some cheap food home to put on the table. I have eaten so much salmon and venison that I can only eat salmon when it's smoked, or else it makes me sick. I contracted a disease when I was 16 that could not be diagnosed because we could not afford healthcare, and did get properly diagnosed until I was 26 yrs old. I have gay friends that have been beaten down on their way home for no other reason than because they were gay. So, it just so happens that all of the issues that you think you are arguing for that are going to make the world a better place are crazy, because again, you have no idea about the real world out there that some people have no choice to live in. I am proud of my family and their accomplishments. My generation has finally got to a point where they are superceding the expaectations of poverty stricken people and becoming lawyers and business owners like my self. But I still recognize that there are millions of people who were less fortunate than even me in my childhood and that there are people out there like yourself who's best answer is: f*** em for not planning ahead, let em die. So, it just so happens that the issues you have, with the people you have these issues with I have lived through and have first person knowledge of, (nearly every single one) where do you think I get my rhetorical questions for your ridiculous posts. And, when you attack those and call them "not fit for breeding" or ignorant and lazy for not helping themselves, you happen to be attacking me and my family, and growing up poor has taught me many things, one of them being that I stick up for mine and fight to the death for mine if needed. It is what makes me who I am today. I was fortunate to have a strong body to fight my way out with and I recognize that there are many who simply don't. You think I'm on the attack, when all I've seen is bull**** from you, because you are better off doesn't give you the right to condemn someone else for not having what you have. And until you can recognize that life deals some people a ****ty hand, and the only way out is to receive a little assistance, you don't know what the **** you're talking about.

I'm perfectly straight.

You are also reading ALL of my points like a punk with a chip on his shoulder and not even letting me help you see what I'm trying to say.


You seem to be a big proponent of the government taking money to care for people in need, and at the same time you seem to understand that the government isn't getting it done, why would you argue with me when I say we should not let the government handle this issue ?

I have repeatedly said that I do believe in people helping others in need to get back on their feet if possible, or at least survive if crippled or whatever..........but Uncle Sugar has proven to be the wrong way to handle it.

I had an easier childhood than you described of your own, but not as rosy as you seem to think...

I have shared my home with others in need both as a child and as an adult, I have done a good deed or two, I'm not telling you to get a pat on the back, but only because you like to paint me as a bad guy which I am not.

I've read your posts, you think it's up to the individual and the families to bail someone out. I'm saying, what if the invidual can't and the family has no money, your response came in the form of "not fit for breeding". that's your stance, plain and simple. Actually let me cut and paste from yur above post: "Many believed that those who couldn't take care of themselves were to blame for their own misfortunes." That is your stand point. I agree that the government does a poor job, but to take it away from the people that need it is completey ****ing stupid, especially since your best argument is that they shouldn't be taking out of your pocket to give to someone else. You cannot count on people to help others, obviously, and the money from your taxes is for just that, a social program to help the less fortunate, like it or not. What's the alternative?? Tell me smart guy, what do you believe should be the system for people that fall in the category of needing assistance and noone available to give it to them. you have a hard enough time justifying paying taxes because "uncle sugar" isn't spending your money on "fit breeders", Am I to believe that you are going to go and help a family you're not related to and give a helping hand on your own??

You can believe what you want, but I have said that needy people can seek help from friends and family first, then places like churches....

I have seen collection jars on store counters around here all my life, local people in crisis get helped from the community even without asking, I think without being taxed for the exact purpose of helping the needy even more people would be putting money into things like that.

When I hear of a family loosing their home to a fire, etc, I donate what I can, I hope you do the same.
What goes around comes around.

Our governments use of the needy to creat jobs and revenue is way past the experiment stage, and it's time to find a way to end it.

BTW, you seem to be making an effort to be civil and I appreciate it.

Hitting the shower, going to a friends B-Day party, I'll have a few drinks to our new friendship.....<grin>

I think you are probably both pretty good guys. You just happen to be on the opposite ends of the entitlement stick. At least that would be the first impression. Probably not accurate. If you, the the Kalpuya Piaute member think you had it bad, you probably did. I have read alot about the tribes. My grandmother was a nurse and lived just outside of Bismarck N.D. She was terrified of the 'drunken savages', her words. She nursed whomever needed it Sioux, and White eyes alike. A few years after they moved to Washington, my mother and then I came into the picture. We were damn poor too, although I didn't know it. My grandfather was a teacher, farmer, carpenter, harvester, mechanic, logger and whatever else it required to put a roof over the family's head and food on the table.
I was born in the year of the 'New Deal.' FDR was in the drivers seat and he was going to take care of the mess our social services wallowed in. The Volstead act also went down the tube much to my Grandmother's disgust. Her name was Carrie and guess who her Idol was. Yah, Carrie Nation the WCTU soldier. I grew up hearing about drunks, drunk Indians. The devil's brew. Booze and boozers. It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.
In those days my Grandmother would take some loaves of bread to the 'poor farm' near Spangle, for those who needed food. She had nothing but scorn for those other folks on the 'dole' as she called it. She felt those people should have to work for their food. She would feed any Hobo that came to the door if he would chop a little kindlling or hoe a row in the garden.
I had it good. I don't remember going hungry except as punishment for some big offense. I cannot remember any time when someone in my family didn't have a job. Even in the worst of winter in 1940 my uncle would take me out woodcutting with him. He used to cut firewood for lots of the outlying farms around the area. No car, we walked. Anyway so what. We all had different experiences growing up. Some good, some bad. Some outgrew the bitterness, some didn't.
And here we are wondering why there are folks that would sit on their fat derreriers and let others earn their daily bread for them. Others that would say "if they won't work let em starve", and others that would take care of everyone if it was permitted. The big problem is those that would take care of everyone would prefer to do it with your income. You fix it I can't.
ps you guys posted six times when I was messing around with this one. I have some more to say but gotta go feed the livestock.

Sard, don't take this the wrong way, but from my grandfather down, there is not a single "drunk" in my family, that was never the problem. The problem was that in the 1950's the member of those confederated tribes were booted off the reservation and the land was taken out of trust and sold to farmers, displacing all that were left on their only drop of soil. the tribe was again federally recognized in the early eighties, and all of us growing up in the outside world had learned to adapt in a sense and used every penny to it's best capability, which is why I have an Uncle with a doctorate in Law and a cousin almost ready for the same honor, and why my grandfather has no problems in his retirement with healthcare or pension. By the way , this money is partially funded by the government, but partially funded by timber, casino and internal philanthropy (family to family).

Here it is in the nicest way I can re state my point. All the coin jars at your local gas station, all the extra money laying around at churches are not enough to help the "truly" needy.

Also, I need to point out the I consider my childhood a blessing. I am capable because I was forced to do it or build it or fix it myself and the love that is exchanged in my family is endless.

But one more for instance. I know a child in alot of people's favorite fishing town, whose parents I grew up with. They went down the wrong path in life, their stupid mistake. the child is sixteen years old and is being raised by his granmother single handedly along with his younger sister who is 8 yrs this year. His mother is in state prison right now and his step father is on a release program and actually doing very well, his only living uncle is in federal prison and his grandfather died about ten years ago from an incurable disease. The grandmother was a stay at home mother all her life, so she never had a certain skill and no education of any sort to pursue a career, it was never needed. Survior benefits and the small life insurance spent out along time ago so now she works for minimum wage 6 days a week and doesn't receive any overtime pay, and because she is in a depressed community, she is thought of as having a "good" job. This kid has put in more hard days by 16 thn most of us will in their whole life. He's my little buddy, and I have helped as often as I could and make it a point to take him fishing, and teach him how to pick mushrooms and brush to make money until he is old enough to get a good job or in my dream that he pursues higher education. But, there is noone besides me that really helps, the community thinks of them as a pariah because of what his mother has done and the only thing that puts the needs in the household for them to live besides her minimum wage job is the assistance she receives for acting as a caretaker for her own grandchildren. The story is so common that there is no way I can believe that people will always come together to help each other in good faith. I try to be a good example and let him know that there are good people out there, and hopefully some day he will be out on his own and remember what is like to be in his situation and do the same, but everything that I can do is not enough and won't be until I'm a multi-millionaire.

I'm sorry if Org thinks the name calling is over the top, it truly is a joke, I have a dry sense of humor. It sounds mean, but it's not like I have a voodoo doll here in efigy that I practice hurting him with, I am actually very reserved, you are lucky that you generally only see my dark side. And that's only when i feel that someone is condeming people that really aren't able to defend themselves. The other one that really gets me is what TK used to always do, which was to claim the Christ condones war and exclusion of people different than ourselves. Otherwise, i'm just trolling through everyone's posts.

My beliefs?? That which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger...I just wish that I didn't have to see people get to that point so often in this great country.

You know Sard, as a post script. One thing that really bothers me today is that it seems people have forgotten about the Great Depression and the effects that it had on people. Also, that people seem to be living in a seperate reality that we got through it so, it could never happen again in our lifetimes. I think people of my parents generation probably felt that they heard a little too much about the great depression, where as I don't feel that I heard enough. In all of my years in High School history, we never covered the Depression, the New Deal, Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs or even Nixon. Contemporary World Problems was a setup for kids to not dig into the real news, but rather concentrate on superficial things with Hollywood or what ever. I'm sure it hasn't improved, after hearing 60% of American grads are not able to point out Afghanistan on a map.