Assuming that providing welfare for children and the disabled is considered a separate issue, should the state provide welfare for those who cannot find work? If so, under what conditions and for how long? During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt started a number of social welfare programs to keep citizens from losing their homes or starving. Some of these programs were not hand-outs, per se, but were jobs. The Works Progress Administration provided jobs for unemployed, building thousands of public works projects, parks, school buildings, government buildings, roads, dams, utility facilities, water lines, even making visual art and writing books. (FDR’s state-sponsored art came under heavy criticism and was compared to propaganda produced by the Soviet Union.) Because the WPA’s main purpose was to employ people, not build projects with economic efficiency, it was criticized by those who thought that the workers were just being paid to stand around. What if Workfare projects were designed to help eliminate poverty? Projects like building tiny homes in poor neighborhoods or starting community gardens could go a long way to make the workfare programs unnecessary eventually.
Would you replace Unemployment Insurance program and/or Welfare with Workfare?