A welfare state is an ideal system where by the government accepts certain responsibilities of

protecting the health and well-being of its citizen, especially those in social and financial need, by means

of pensions, grants and other benefits (Boundless Political Science, 2021). In the United States (U.S.) the

foundation of modern welfare state was laid by the president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s the New Deal

Programs in the 1930s (1933 to 1938) (Roosevelt, 2014). Therefore, to have better understanding, this

paper will identify and explains factors that contribute to the emergence of welfare states within the

Marxism, and U.S. – related to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s the New Deal Programs.

The United States

Historically, Roosevelt created the New Deals programs to focus on “3 R’s”: Relief, Recovery

and Reform, as the country was going through the Great Depression Crisis. However, and imperatively,

specific areas of the New Deals, such as wage control (minimum wage), retirement (social security) and

labor (works progress) contribute to the emergency of welfare state in the U.S. Essentially, there are key

determining factors of how an individual’s money should be spent.

When the Great Depression started, approximately 18 million disabled, single mothers with

children and elderly lived at a bare subsistence level in the U.S. (Moen & Gratton, 1999). By 1933,

another 13 million people in the U.S. lost their jobs, which made difficult for the local and state

government to offer minimum help to all those in need. As a result, food riots began suddenly, and

desertion by fathers and husbands increased. Further, homeless families in cities lived in shanty towns

and public parks. Desperation at the time, started to put most of American ideals into question, including

the idea that if a person worked hard enough, they could always take care of their family and himself.

According to Moen & Gratton (1999), the elderly Americans who lacked retirement pensions

found it difficult to support their families and themselves, while those few with retirement pensions found

that the financial crash in 1929, wiped out all of their investments and saving. After Roosevelt introduced

the New Deals Programs, he signed a Social Security Act in 1935 (Gilkesson, 2018). Specifically, Social

Security Act set up retirement program for individuals over 65 years of age. President Roosevelt strongly
believed that employer-paid unemployment insurance together with federal old-age pensions would give

American people the economic security in bad and good times.

Currently, Social Security is more than retirement plan, as it provides disability insurance and life

insurance as well. Additionally, it gives foundation of retirement protection for all American people at all

earning levels. More so, it continues encourage personal savings and private pensions, as it neither deny

nor reduce benefits to people whose assets or income exceed a certain level. However, despite all benefits

that it provides people, somehow individuals at the age 65 years, have never been asked, “Do you want to

retire?” Opinionatedly, the answer of the question solely depends on social security Act, and individual

personality. Fitzpatrick & Moore (2018) stated that most people willingly retire before they have reached

65 years of age, which, ill-advisedly, enable to them to save little for their retirement. This is why the

government merely decides people will save for retirement and take the money, letting them know that

they will give it back to them when they are deemed ready. In other words, when the government delay

individuals from claiming Social Security retirements benefits before retirement age, they end up

benefitting financially.

When federal, local and state governments, offered these programs for the first time in the U.S.,

a welfare state emerged. Precisely, after president Roosevelt introduced the New Deals programs to give

work relief to unemployed Americans, states received federal money to pay for public projects, which

created jobs for unemployed individuals. Also, some of the federal money directly helped needy victims

suffering due to Great Depression. The states, on the other hand, took the welfare of children, disabled,

widows, elderly poor and children by taking it away from families, individuals and churches. In addition,

after president Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, the federal government assured that the

dependent and needy children under 16 years old, destitute old people, crippled children and needy blind

also receive the necessary assistance. The federal government pushed this law to the Southern states to

manage the coverage available to African-American Population. Ideally, this is actually how the welfare

started as responsibility of the federal government.

 After President Roosevelt signed and initiated the New Deal programs, the US congress

introduced the Fair Standard Act, which created a federal minimum wage (Reich, 2015). Minimum wage

was primarily created to protect American employees from unduly low pay, and even, increase the

financial resources for employees near retirement. According to Gertner et al. (2019), it is of utmost

importance that minimum wage reinforces and supplement other employment and social policies in order

to ensure all employees are protected, and equitable and just share of fruits of progress. Due to this

reason, this is why it is of utmost significance that wage control determines minimum person’s work

rather than allowing the employees and employers to make the determination.

Marxism

Regarding Marxism, the key factors that contribute to the emergency of welfare state are the

industrial Revolution and Social Democracy. According to Therborn (2018), Marxists believes that

modern welfare states policies are unable to solve the structural and fundamental issues of capitalism,

such as alienation, exploitation and fluctuations. In so doing, Marxism continues to criticize the welfare

states that emerged as result of social democracy, as they fail to follow socialism. Regarding the welfare

states, Marxism has led to significant effects on politics and economy today. Suggestively, before the

Covid-19 outbreak, Marxism had insignificant effects on politics of a welfare state. Conversely, since the

outbreak, Marxism is significantly reminding people how welfare state is insufficient to reduce poverty,

due to increased unemployment rate. On the contrary, based on the Biden Covid Stimulus Bill continues

to help helps poor families increase their earnings. Consequently, Marxism has also provided useful

insights to why it impossible to reduce retirement expenditure due to the increasingly aging population in

a welfare state. On the other hand, when it comes on politics, Marxism continues to put the lefts and the

rights into intense pressure to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the rising tide of democratic politics

in welfare state, specifically in the U.S.

Conclusively, this paper has identified and explained factors within the United

States and Marxism that contributed to the emergence of welfare state, and Marxism effects on politics

and economic today.