The following is the thesis statement that I hope will eventually help me obtain my Master's Degree. For all you single moms, this is dedicated to the sacrifices that you make every day.
The modern welfare
system can trace its roots to the Elizabethan Poor Laws; however, as much as it
has evolved and/or changed over the last five hundred years, today’s social
welfare programs have taken on the same patriarchal overtones that continue to dictate
policy in the United States. In early colonial America, poverty was not an
indication of flaws in the character of the needy or society, but by the 19th
century, the idea of benevolent relief for the less fortunate had evolved into a
common belief that being poor not only was an indication of a defect in
character it had also become an imposition to the wealthy. Researching the welfare
laws through the next two hundred years indicated a trend that this notion has
become the heart of how the welfare system is set up today and further demonstrates
that these laws have simultaneously ensured that the class system remains intact.
As the number of female headed households has increased, the welfare system has
not been modified in a way that reflects what is most beneficial to this
particular family structure, but instead has been altered to such an extent
that it almost ensures single mothers remain in poverty. There remains a
popular public notion that today’s relief system is nothing more than an overly
generous handout to the lazy which in turn has only exacerbated the stigma that
is attached to single motherhood. In the last fifty years, the percentage of female
headed households has almost doubled, yet the higher frequency has not lent to
ease the shame that is attached to single moms any more than public assistance has
improved the probability that these women will rise above the poverty level.
The public assumption that welfare is a handout attests to the fact that the
general public is ignorant of the ‘feminization of poverty’ and how living this
way forces single mothers to live in unhealthy states of anxiety, often having
to choose between obligation to their child’s needs and keeping the electricity
on or a roof over their head. This paper
will explore the evolution of the United States of America’s social welfare
policy while highlighting how it has contributed to the economic and social
discrimination of single mothers with a non-widow status.
