Concentrated Poverty

Terminology
Terminology in this area is somewhat different in the United States than in the rest of
the English-speaking world. The general term for an action program in support of the
well being of poor people in the United States is welfare program, and the general term
for all such programs is simply welfare. In American society, the term welfare arguably
has negative connotations. In the United States, the term Social Security refers to the
US social insurance program for all retired and disabled people. Elsewhere the term
social security is used in a much broader sense, referring to the economic security that
society offers when people are faced with certain risks.
Recent UK official use of the term welfare includes not only minimal help for people in
need but also some services traditionally called benefits and social security in most
English-speaking countries except the United States. The term is even used to include
government help in finding employment.
Non-native English speakers are often confused by the use of welfare to refer to
different things in different countries and in the same country, for example well being,
but native speakers can usually understand from the context which meaning is
intended.
History
In the Roman Empire, the first emperor Augustus provided the Cura Annonae or grain
dole for citizens who could not afford to buy food every month. Social welfare was
enlarged by the Emperor Trajan. Trajan's program brought acclaim from many,
including Pliny the Younger. The Song dynasty government (c.1000AD in China)
supported multiple programs which could be classified as social welfare, including the
establishment of retirement homes, public clinics, and paupers' graveyards. According
to economist Robert Henry Nelson, "The medieval Roman Catholic Church operated a
far-reaching and comprehensive welfare system for the poor..."
Early welfare programs in Europe included the English Poor Law of 1601, which gave
parishes the responsibility for providing welfare payments to the poor. This system was
substantially modified by the 19th-century Poor Law Amendment Act, which introduced
the system of workhouses.
Public assistance programs were not called welfare until the early 20th century when
the term was quickly adopted to avoid the negative connotations that had become
associated with older terms such as charity.
It was predominantly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that an organized system
of state welfare provision was introduced in many countries. Otto von Bismarck,
Chancellor of Germany, introduced one of the first welfare systems for the working
classes. In Great Britain the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and
David Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance system in 1911, a system later
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