Welfare Benefits and Family Health

Welfare benefits are designed to promote the well-being of individuals by providing government support including food vouchers and other nutritional services, monetary payments, access to health services, or provision of subsidized housing, among others. These benefits are commonly extended to [Page 1025]persons who are unemployed, ill or disabled, the aged, and persons with dependent children. Eligibility criteria for welfare benefits may also be linked to some form of means testing or other specific conditions. Sheila Zedlewski and Olivia Golden have suggested that the recession of 2008 in the United States and continued concerns regarding its economy have called into question the extent to which eligibility criteria of publicly supported programs, such as food stamps, monetary subsidies, and health care services among other services, comprise an ...