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? According to recent polls, most Americans consider this nation's welfare system “a failure and a disgrace” (LeVert 10). Most people use the word “welfare” to mean income support or public assistance programs designed to help people who are already poor ....

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.... programs that offer subsistence rather than opportunities, or incentives (Long 23). Federal expenditures for public and private low-cost housing have been cut from $30 billion, in 1981, to $7 billion in 1987, and only about 4 million of 10 million eligible households receive federal rental assistance of any kind (Long 29). In the essay, “A Nation of Welfare Families,” Stephanie Coontz discusses her belief that all families in American history have depended on the legislative, judicial, and social structures set up by the government (Coontz 994). The suburban family of the 1950s was far more dependent on government assistance than any s ....