Welfare administration is welfare administration: A critical analysis of welfare administration during the Governors Richard Thornburgh and Robert Casey periods

The subject of welfare administration has been a topic of controversy for many years. Many people in the American public see the system as mismanagement of their hard earned taxpayer dollars. They reference a current ineffective, inefficient system. Each year the politicians promise to clean up the mess, but each year the welfare ranks grow and the sense of helplessness gets worse.;We were also aware that the state welfare system is regulated in may areas by the federal government; therefore, we also examined the administration of President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan. These were the presidents in power during the governors' administrations. This also gave us the opportunity to further examine the effects of political parties on policymaking since President Carter was a Democrat and President Reagan was a Republican.;In Chapter I we wanted to see if there really was a problem with welfare administration in the state of Pennsylvania in the mind of the public. Feedback was solicited from a few citizens to see how they actually felt about the system. It was clear that most of them had a narrow, negative view of the system and that further investigation was needed.;Chapter II offered a history of the welfare system. It is extremely difficult to resolve the problems of the current welfare system without knowing something about its origin. This chapter traced the system from its roots in the family structure in England to its operation in the 21st century United States.;Chapters I and II discuss the purpose of this thesis and the need for change. Since the politicians claim to have the answers to the problems of welfare administration, we decided to examine the role of political parties. We wanted to see if the political orientation of the chief executive in power made the difference between an effective or ineffective system of welfare administration. We decided to use as our model the administrations of Governor Richard Thornburgh and Governor Robert Casey. Since Governor Thornburgh was Republican and Governor Casey was a Democrat, this gave us a good opportunity to see if the political party was the answer.;A review of related literature was done in Chapter III. In this chapter, we concentrated on the role of the federal government in welfare administration. Special emphasis was placed on the Democratic administration of President Jimmy Carter and the Republican administration of President Ronald Reagan. These were the administrations in office during the governors Thornburgh and Casey periods. Welfare programs on the national level were examined to get a better perspective as to their impact on the respective governors' administrations. Many state welfare programs are regulated as well as funded by the federal government.;There was a procedural review of the welfare system in Pennsylvania done in Chapter IV. Here a close look was taken at the organizational structure of the Department of Public Welfare under both governors' administrations. To get an even clearer picture of the structure and functions of the welfare department, two local county administrators were interviewed. Interviews were conducted with Patricia Wartman, Income Maintenance Administrator, Lehigh County and with Don Blair, County Supervisor, Berks County. To get a grassroots understanding of the effects of welfare administration in Pennsylvania, interviews were done with two welfare recipients in Lehigh County.;Chapter V saw the results of the Procedural review. In this chapter we examined the mission statements of both governors. From the statements, it could be ascertained that both governors saw a need for welfare reform, and that each had his own particular slant as to how to bring about meaningful reform. Welfare reforms and welfare programs in Pennsylvania were closely examined in this chapter. We found that although each administration had some programs and ideas of reform that were unique to his particular administration, there were also many duplications of programs between the two administrations.;In Chapter VI, the concluding chapter, we took an even closer look at the effects of the political orientation of the chief executive in power on welfare administration. We divided the two camps into groups with the Republican representing the conservative view and the Democrats representing the liberal view. What we found was that no political party has the complete answer to the problem of welfare administration. No one is ready or willing to scrap the entire system and start from scratch.;No meaningful change in the administration of welfare in the United States and in Pennsylvania in particular can be accomplished until we get to the bottom as to why so many people need public assistance. The welfare department also needs to do a better job of public relations. The welfare system provides a number of vital services to millions of people. It is unfortunate that this aspect of the system is not emphasized more. Perhaps we are asking too much of our politicians. With the makeup of our complex, diverse society, can we come up with a system that is effective, efficient, and equitable? We can only try.