In 1966, the Social Security Administration calculated that a family of four needed an income of $3,355 a year to be above the line of poverty. And in 1977, the average poverty line of the country was slightly more than $6,200 annual income for a non-farm family of four. According to the Social Security Act, families of that size below poverty line are eligible to receive benefits from the special welfare program. The average weekly payment of benefits now is equivalent to 36 percent of the workers normal wage. And the number of people who receive government benefits is increasing. In 1973, social insurance payments by governments, mainly to old age pensioners and people who had lost their jobs or were off work through illness, amounted to $86,000 million. Those not fully qualified for insurance payments received $29,000 million in public aid.
But problems still exist. Many people are not reached by the anti-poverty program, because local authorities and agencies do not want to play their part or do not gave the resources to do so. Some poor people will not accept help for various reasons. Of course, there are some more important factors which lie in the structure of the society, but I dont consider it necessary to dig into them here. Yet we will perhaps agree that social welfare programs have solved to some extent the problems of feeding, clothing and housing those below the poverty line. On the whole, it perhaps might be said that American people are living a better life than people in most other countries.
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