RESPOND TO THIS DISCUSSION:
The Great Depression resulted in economic devastation for the country that resulted in high unemployment rates for everyone challenging the certainty that had steered social welfare previously that there was a correlation between the deserving and underserving poor (Stern & Axinn, 2018). It highlighted that people could encounter hardships due to social factors and was not just dependent on personal flaws. African Americans and black men experienced the greatest losses in connection with their farm ownership and faced evictions versus their white counterpart who owned farms; blacks also experienced much higher rates of poverty and was not allotted relief monies as part of the new deal highlighting that racial discrimination was a major problem (Stern & Axinn, 2018). The great depression had a very ongoing contradictive and presumably devastating impact on women. Prior to the great depression women were working outside the home increasingly according to data in 1930 however, with the great depression women were displaced by men in some jobs but in others there was role reversal as women were underpaid therefore men were laid off and women assumed those positions (Stern & Axinn, 2018). Women were used and the patterns of unfairness was undeniable throughout the 1930’s and 40’s when in 1932 congress established a married person clause dismissing women as federal personnel if their spouses were employed and single women suffered greater than their married counterpart (Stern & Axinn, 2018).
The Social security act aided the elderly and those unable to work by extending funding and women by enforcing terms for the improvement of maternal and child care services offered, widowed mothers would receive benefits from the death of a working spouse however unmarried women were not eligible for benefits consequently the social security act had limited benefits for people of color due to the two class system. The two-class system consisted of supporting whites who worked established industries and blacks who worked in less stable industries would continue to rely on the old poor law system for aid. Today the social security act is inclusive to aid and support those eligible for benefits. It is more beneficial to all groups than not but continues to have room for improvement and more than likely has some discriminatory aspects embedded.
References
Stern, M. J., & Axinn, J. (2018). Social welfare: A history of the American response to need (9th ed.). Pearson.
