Secondly, social welfare programs try to benefit most people. The recipients are not just poor households, the elderly, veterans, or students, but also farmers, petroleum companies, and affluent homeowners who receive support through tax deductions. And thirdly, social welfare does not substantially reduce income inequality. That is because the affluent receive far greater support from government-supported welfare than the poor. For example, deductions the affluent homeowners receive is worth $337 billion annually, which, as Macionis notes, "worth ten times as much as what the government spends to provide food assistance to low-income people" (43).
As Lauer and Lauer note, deriving from the study of consumer advocate Ralph Nader, there are four areas in the welfare system that are advantageous to the rich. Bailouts are given to large corporations to safeguard them from bankruptcy. Resource depletion, which allows large corporations to have the rights to minerals and timber leased at "bargain-basement prices." Corporations also benefit from the taxpayer-funded research and development. Although...
And finally, the government provides subsidies to profit-making businesses such as private golf clubs, farm crops, and giant corporations (177-8). Moreover, as noted earlier, many social welfare programs also support the nonpoor. Lauer and Lauer explain: "Medicaid helps some of the poor, but it also makes a number of physicians wealthy. Job-training programs help some of the poor, but they also provide high-salaried positions for a number of middle-class administrators" (177).
So, the social welfare in the United States has essentially become corporate welfare.
Works Cited
Lauer, Robert, and Lauer, Jeanette. Social Problems and the Quality of Life, 12th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2011. Print.
Macionis, John. Social Problems, 3d edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall: 2008. Print.
Wildman, David, "Corporate Welfare vs. Social Welfare," Web. 22 March 2011
