Social welfare provision

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Social welfare" redirects here. For other uses see Welfare

A social welfare provision refers to any program which seeks to provide a guaranteed minimum level of income, service or other support for the population of a country as a whole, or for specific groups such as the poor, elderly, and disabled people. Social welfare programs are undertaken by governments and by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Social welfare payments and services are provided at the expense of taxpayers generally or by obligatory National Insurance contributions, funded by benefactors. Welfare payments can take the form of in-kind transfers (e.g., health care services) or cash (e.g., earned income tax credit). Examples of social welfare services include the following:

Compulsory superannuation savings programs.
Compulsory social insurance programs, often based on income, to pay for the social welfare service being provided. These are often incorporated into the taxation system and may be inseparable from income tax^{[citation needed]}.
Pensions, either for the entire population or for those who had lower incomes.
Financial aid, including social security and tax relief, to those with low incomes or inability to meet basic living costs, especially those who are raising children, elderly, unemployed, injured, sick or disabled.
Free or low cost nursing, medical and hospital care, antenatal and postnatal care for those who are sick, injured or unable to care for themselves. This may be available to everybody, or means tested. Services may be provided in the community or a medical facility.
Free or low-cost public education for all children, and financial aid, sometimes as a scholarship or pension, sometimes in the form of a suspensory loan, to students attending academic institutions or undertaking vocational training.
The state may also fund or operate social work and community-based organizations that provide services that benefit disadvantaged people in the community.
Welfare money paid by a government to persons who are in need of financial assistance.

Police, criminal courts, prisons, and other parts of the justice system are not generally considered part of the social welfare system, while child protection services are. Assistance given to those in the justice system is more about allowing an individual to receive fair treatment rather than social welfare.^{[citation needed]} While being involved in the justice system often excludes an individual from social welfare assistance, those exiting the justice system, such as released prisoners, and families of those involved in the justice system are often eligible for social welfare assistance. In some countries, improvements in social welfare services have been justified by savings being made in the justice system,^{[citation needed]} as well as personal healthcare and legal costs.

States or nations that provide social welfare programs are often identified as having a welfare state. In such countries, access to social welfare services is considered a basic and inalienable right to those in need. In many cases these are considered natural rights, and indeed that position is borne out by the UN Convention on Social and Economic Rights and other treaty documents.^{[citation needed]} Accordingly, many people^[who?] refer to welfare within a context of social justice, making an analogy to rights of fair treatment or restraint in criminal justice.

[edit] References

R.M. Blank (2001). "Welfare Programs, Economics of," International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, pp. 16426–16432, Abstract.
Sheldon Danziger, Robert Haveman, and Robert Plotnick (1981). "How Income Transfer Programs Affect Work, Savings, and the Income Distribution: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature 19(3), pp. 975-1028.
R.H. Haveman (2001). "Poverty: Measurement and Analysis," International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, pp. 11917–11924. Abstract.
Steven N. Durlauf et al., ed. (2008) The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition: