The United States of America's 1996 Welfare Act

            Since the Great Depression that the USA experienced in the 1930s until 1996, the welfare system in the country existed of a bit more than fixed cash expenses to the poor people. That time, the government gave compensation for poor people, especially kids and mothers, despite their capability to do work, properties they have, or other individual condition. Yes, the compensation did not have any limits that time, and it claimed to be normal if some people would spend their whole lives based on welfare. Started in 1990, the opinion from the people had switched sturdily adjacent to that type of welfare system. Some criticized that the system was more like rewarding than reducing poverty in the US (Nadasen, Mittelstadt, & Chappell, 2013).

            In 1992, the presidential campaign from Bill Clinton presented the reform for welfare. And four years later, at 1996, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act or known as "The Welfare Reform Act" represented the effort to reform the old welfare system with motivating the people that received welfare to forget welfare and start to do work. The reform also switched the main responsibility to the country for managing the welfare system. The innovation policies which included in The Welfare Reform Act are:

·         The recipients are demanded to get jobs within two years after they received the first welfare compensation.

·         The welfare compensation will only give to the recipients with five years maximum period.

·         The country has permission to set up “family caps” which cut off the extra compensation for mothers of the newborn is the mothers are previously got welfare compensation.

Ever since The Welfare Reform Act performs, the function of the federal government in supporting people has become restricted to the generally goal-setting and set up the presentation of rewards and penalties (Haskins, 2007).