Sowing the Seeds of “Welfare”: The Transformation of Mothers' Pensions, 1900–1940

Abstract

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) had come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the American welfare state. Benefit levels have always varied significantly from state to state and seldom have been adequate anywhere to move recipients above the poverty line. Until the 1960s some local administrators discriminated against certain categories of recipients, particularly blacks and unwed mothers. Overt discrimination is now rare; instead, potential beneficiaries must negotiate a series of seemingly neutral administrative hurdles whose cumulative effect is to discourage many of those eligible from applying. Conservatives claim that AFDC subsidizes a broad range of socially-undesirable behaviors, from idleness and a lack of civic obligation to out-of-wedlock births and permanent dependence on public assistance. Liberals dispute these claims but cannot or will not make an affirmative case for the program. Program administrators at the national and local levels have never been strong champions. Opinion polls consistently show that most Americans favor “helping the poor” but not “welfare,” which they equate with AFDC. Finally, beneficiaries view receipt of AFDC as stigmatizing and degrading. Low benefit levels and the lack of decent-paying jobs create a moral climate in which many single mothers receiving AFDC must lie to the Internal Revenue Service and their case workers about working on the side in order to make ends meet.