DISCUSSIONS REPLY
Write discussion responses to the posts below.
Sarah Barrow
One effect of the Great Depression on men of color and women was a lowered standard of living due to a sharp decrease in employment opportunities. This resulted in the inability to secure gainful employment, as these groups were often the last to be hired and the first to be let go (Stern and Axinn, 2018). President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation helped to ameliorate the effects of the Great Depression by providing jobs and wages to millions of Americans, including men of color and women. One of the most prominent and influential figures advocating for change in the early 20th century was Forrester Blanchard Washington, who was an African American social worker who advocated for improved economic, civil, and social rights for African Americans (Barrow, 2007). During the New Deal era, Washington was selected to be the Director of Negro Work under the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA). However, after a brief time, Washington resigned from the position after his efforts to enact change for African Americans fell on deaf ears as it related to the New Deal policy agenda of the time (2007).
Implemented in 1935, the Social Security Act provided crucial benefits for millions of elderly, disabled, and unemployed Americans, including men of color and women. Specifically, the Act provided funding for a retirement system, as well as unemployment and disability insurance. However, the Social Security Act led to a two-class system because it was designed to provide benefits to some classes of people while leaving out other classes. The Act excluded domestic and agricultural workers, who were largely composed of men of color and women. This exclusion meant that these groups were not able to receive the benefits that were available to other classes of workers, which quickly resulted in a racial division of the class structure (Stern and Axinn, 2018). The Social Security Act is still in place today. Thankfully, the exclusion of certain classes of workers was ultimately eliminated, which allowed for all races and workers from all industries to receive benefits; however, it would be decades before this would occur.
Barrow, F. H. (2007). Forrester Blanchard Washington and His Advocacy for African Americans in the New Deal. Social Work, 52(3), 201-8. http://library.capella.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fforrester-blanchard-washington-his-advocacy%2Fdocview%2F215269341%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D27965
Stern, M. J., & Axinn, J. (2018). Social welfare: A history of the American response to need (9th ed.). Pearson.
Ashanta Rogers
The Great Depression resulted in economic devastation for the country that resulted in high unemployment rates for everyone challenging the certainty that had steered social welfare previously that there was a correlation between the deserving and underserving poor (Stern & Axinn, 2018). It highlighted that people could encounter hardships due to social factors and was not just dependent on personal flaws. African Americans and black men experienced the greatest losses in connection with their farm ownership and faced evictions versus their white counterpart who owned farms; blacks also experienced much higher rates of poverty and was not allotted relief monies as part of the new deal highlighting that racial discrimination was a major problem (Stern & Axinn, 2018). The great depression had a very ongoing contradictive and presumably devastating impact on women. Prior to the great depression women were working outside the home increasingly according to data in 1930 however, with the great depression women were displaced by men in some jobs but in others there was role reversal as women were underpaid therefore men were laid off and women assumed those positions (Stern & Axinn, 2018). Women were used and the patterns of unfairness was undeniable throughout the 1930’s and 40’s when in 1932 congress established a married person clause dismissing women as federal personnel if their spouses were employed and single women suffered greater than their married counterpart (Stern & Axinn, 2018).
The Social security act aided the elderly and those unable to work by extending funding and women by enforcing terms for the improvement of maternal and child care services offered, widowed mothers would receive benefits from the death of a working spouse however unmarried women were not eligible for benefits consequently the social security act had limited benefits for people of color due to the two class system. The two-class system consisted of supporting whites who worked established industries and blacks who worked in less stable industries would continue to rely on the old poor law system for aid. Today the social security act is inclusive to aid and support those eligible for benefits. It is more beneficial to all groups than not but continues to have room for improvement and more than likely has some discriminatory aspects embedded.
References
Stern, M. J., & Axinn, J. (2018). Social welfare: A history of the American response to need (9th ed.). Pearson.
