Affirmative Action Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Affirmative Action - Essay Example The research also focuses on viability of implementing the provisions of the affirmative action law during 2012. The companies and schools must implement all the provisions of the affirmative action law. Affirmative action includes requiring the companies to reserve a certain percentage of its total employment force or total student enrollees to the minorities of society. Affirmative action entails avoiding discrimination in the hiring of employees and acceptance of students enrolling in a school. Some companies interpret affirmative action as a quota system (Lapenson, 2009). Companies must allot a certain percentage of the entire work force to minorities. In the same manner, schools should allocate a certain percentage of the total enrollment to minorities. Initially, affirmative action was crafted into law to eliminate racial discrimination against the African Americans. The companies are penalized for discriminating against the minority job applicants and minority student enrollee s. Further, statistical data shows that affirmative action has changed the landscapes. The prior data indicated that 47.5 percent of the total work force before 1909 were women. During the current period, the female workers increased to 85 percent of the total workforce in the US. ... Discrimination can be done in several aspects. The aspects include race, color, creed, and national origin. President John F. Kennedy envisioned that companies would not hire a job applicant or accept the enrollment of student based on one’s race, color, gender, religion, religion or national origin. The order firmly established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Prior to President Kennedy’s executive order, African Americans had more difficulty in finding jobs when compared to the Caucasian Americans (Spann, 2000). Next, United States President Lyndon Johnson interpreted the affirmative action to include generating more job opportunities and school enrollment rights to the African Americans. President Johnson spearheaded an updated version of the affirmation action provision during 1965. President Johnson insists that the affirmative action law gave everyone of all races, color, religion, gender, and national origin equal rights to land a vacant job or enroll in a school of their choice (Fischer, 2010). Lastly, the affirmative action fluctuated during different time periods (Platt, 1997). Women benefitted from affirmative action. During the 1970s, 53 percent of college and university students were nonwhites. Affirmative action triggered an increase in female graduates in medical school (8 percent increase) and law schools (5 percent increase). Specifically, the 1979 to 1989 research period shows that there was a 31 percent increase in African American men and 55 percent increase in African American women. Further, there is a 39 percent increase in Hispanic men and 45 percent increase in Hispanic women in terms of medical school enrollment statistics (Welch, 1998). The research shows that many white

The Debate Over Social Security Today Research Paper

The Debate Over Social Security Today - Research Paper Example The program created to aid those who are unemployed in US is still functional and the program that was created to assist the families that have dependant children has been transformed into a program created to aid the needy ones. The era of the Great Depression led to the creation of Social Security Act but the same idea existed even before this time period. For example: during the 1880s a program to aid the old aged people, pregnant women and ill people was functional in Germany. These programs are said to be developed due to the urbanization of Germany. Similarly, the program of social insurance is said to have developed due to the urbanization in US. During the period of 1880s the number of people working in industries and number of people working in farms and agricultural arena were equal. By the 1930s, the number of people working in farms decreased to 21% of the total workforce and people started gaining wage based employment in the industrial sector. Further states that the wa ges earned by people working in industrialized areas were variable in nature even before the Great Depression. Before the Great Depression, the unemployment rate between the eras of 1905 to 109 fluctuated from as low as 3.9% to 16.4% and the unemployment rate during the era of 1920 to 1924 fluctuated from 4.1% to 19.5% (Kennedy, 1999). When ever economic downtrend took place in US, the category of people who took most of the burden were the old aged people, other side effects of downtrend included loss of income due to impairments and death. These effects gained the attention of the policy makers and during the Great Depression these issues gained more strength as during this era the unemployment rate in non agricultural sectors elevated to 34%. Increase in the degree of these issues made the policy makers create the Social security program (Green, 2003). The early developed program of Social Security was not designed in a way to provide fast relief from the effects of the Great dep ression. The early program was somewhat like the Townsend plan according to which individuals aging 60 and above were provided with an old age pension of $200. This amount was only provided to those individuals who were not employed or could not work and they had to spend the entire amount in one particular months time period. This program never became a part of the US constitution but gained tremendous popularity because it focused on wiping of poverty and to obtain economic success. Body Several features of the Social Security Act of 1935 are still available in the current Social security system, over the years the system has experienced various changes. The changes made to the act during the era of 1939 have now become a part of debate. The Act in its true shape was created with the purpose of providing retirement funds to those who were no longer employed and were aging over 65 years. The formulation of the benefits that were to be offered to old aged people under this act was b ased on the income earned by these old aged people since 1937 and the benefits were offered to people coming from limited kinds of jobs. The first formulation of benefits offered very low benefits to the old aged people as compared to the wages earned by an average worker during that time period (Livingston, 2008). These benefits were never applied to the Social Security Act; the only features applied from this Social Security A