National policy frameworks and implementation

National Policy

The social welfare policy I will describe is Social Security, which is the old age pension plan at the federal level. Social security was originally signed into law as the major component of the Social Security Act of 1935, by Franklin Roosevelt.

The objective of this policy is to provide American who are beyond working age with some form of income. The general retirement age is 65, and many people at a certain point in their lives can no longer contribute economically. At such a point, the government takes care of their basic needs through the Social Security Act, by providing a baseline level of income, a sort of a national pension.

There have been many amendments or adjustments to this act that have been signed over the years. The latest was in 2009, when the No Social Security Benefits for Prisoners Act was signed. This act forbids the payment of Title II and Title XVI benefits to people while they are in prison or violate the conditions of their parole or probation. This means that prisoners are not going to be paid retroactive benefits for the time that they were a prisoner (SSA.gov, 2009).

4. The Social Security Act was sponsored by the President's Committee on Economic Security under Frances Perkins. Perkins was a Democrat., as was FDR.

5. The best website to learn about this policy is SSA.gov, which outlines for people the practical applications of the Social Security Administration today. The SSA was created to administer the social security program, so this website has a lot of information. The information is in part practical -- up-to-date information about how a storm might affect social security checks, but also broader information for the youth about how social security might affect their lives.

6. Because the legislation is quite old, it is tougher to zero in on who was involved in advocacy work. The key advocate was Frances Perkins, who was a labor activist before FDR put her in charge of this issue. Her background in social causes gave her the expertise needed to build up such a policy. So the legislation was basically something that was favored by the President, and was created by those who were appointed by him to create it, drawing from the labor movement, and inspired by the financial need that was created by the 1929 stock market crisis and the Great Depression.

7. The key player who supported the idea was President Roosevelt. Basically, he spearheaded the idea to create a national pension plan, which is what Social Security is. The union movement and labor backers were all involved in the creation of this plan, and the reason is because they wanted to support worker rights, and better lifestyles for workers, though certainly they could not have failed to notice that the more government provides for workers, the less they might be responsible for as well.