Universal Welfare or Selective Welfare?

Social welfare has been on a constant controversy in democratic and capitalistic countries, and the major issue countries are faced with is whether they should enact more policies based on universal welfare or selective welfare. Welfare has become one of the most important system to have in a democratic country and some heavy government expenditures are placed on social welfare policies. The government of the United States have spent $3.7 trillion from 2009 to 2013(weeklystandard.com) just on welfare policies. This just shows how important the welfare system is in maintaining a country. With the governments deciding which system to use between universal welfare or selective welfare, they can change the future of their own countries.

General Information of Universal and Selective Welfare

Universal Welfare: Social welfare system that is applied to all citizens of the country,

Selective Welfare: Social welfare system that is applied to a specific group of people within a country.

There are clear differences between the two. While universal welfare targets the entire population, hence spending money to provide welfare for all, selective welfare targets specific groups who are usually poor and needier.

Benefits from Universal Welfare -       Provides welfare for everyone, thus becoming a welfare state -       Fulfils the logic of Declaration of Human Rights that human beings should be provided with the least amount of food, clothing and shelter to survive -       The entire population’s happiness rises -       Higher chances of everyone being better off, fewer chances of them becoming poorer

Losses from Universal Welfare -       Less efficient, as richer families also get welfare services from the government -       Much more government expenditures are required -       Tax rate could be increased more due to high government expenditures compared to times when the government is adopting selective welfare -       More possibilities of higher and middle class people abusing the universal welfare

Benefits from Selective Welfare -       Provides welfare for a specific group of people especially those who are in need, hence making government expenditures efficient -       No unnecessary payments made on high and middle class houses

Losses from Selective Welfare -       Not everyone benefits from the welfare policy, therefore making possibilities that the government could miss a certain part of the group -       Happiness rate is not affected heavily more than utilizing universal welfare. -       Some people could disagree over the ranges of people that are chosen for selective welfare policies

A Case of Controversy on Universal Welfare

One of the most controversial issues around the world on universal welfare policy is the policy of free meals in schools, which recently was brought up quite heavily in South Korea. In South Korea, it is mandatory for its citizens to attend elementary schools and middle schools, and some people brought up with the issue that meals should be free in schools since people must attend them. Therefore, the Korean government has adopted a universal welfare policy around free meals for every student attending elementary and middle school. It was the biggest welfare issue that has risen in Korea today, and some provinces within Korea has stopped the policy due to the exceeding government expenditures as well as school expenditures. Some schools have been on deficit due to not enough support from governments but having to provide meals for all students for free.

A Case of Controversy on Selective Welfare

For selective welfare system, one of the most controversial issues of it is the policy of providing free subway tickets for elderly people over the age of 65 in South Korea. The government company in trains and subways, KORAIL, has been on a severe deficit for a long time on subway enterprise, due to not only cheap ticket prices but with the welfare policy of providing free tickets for elderly people. Korean subway line 1 goes all the way to Chungcheong-do, which is more than 3 hours away. Yet for elderly people, this line is also free, thus people from Chungcheong-do can travel to Seoul whenever they want to. Many people have been arguing over the free tickets issue, and currently the government is still keeping the policy running.

My Approaches to the Social Welfare Policy

I was always interested on the topic of social welfare policy in democratic and capitalistic countries. From my research and life experiences, I am personally in favor of the selective welfare system.

What selective welfare system can achieve in my opinion is truly providing service to those who are in need. The aim of social welfare in the first place was to help the poor to help them become richer and make economic contributions to the nation, however universal welfare, which provides service to all, goes against this aim. Higher class families do not require any welfare system to benefit from because they can support themselves. In my opinion, governments are spending unnecessarily on these rich houses which leads to all kinds of economical issues such as increased taxes and more burden for the working younger generations of the nation. I personally have seen some elderly people constumed with rich jewelries taking subways for free, and we are the ones paying for them by paying more taxes. I think this is neither fair nor economoy-efficient. I think it is time for us to remind us on the true meaning of welfare and re-think about our current situation on welfare policies. The government could be much better off with providing selective welfare, which provides services for only the ones who are truly in need.

Here are some interesting videos and links to look at:

The U.S. Welfare System's Transformation and Its Future (Youtube)

Social Welfare in the United States (Youtube)

Controversy of Excessive Welfare, Will Korea Become Like Greece? (Korean)(Youtube)

Should Welfare Be Provided on a Universal or Selective Basis? (Website Document)