Welfare Policy

Welfare policy has a controversial history in American political life. Values such as personal responsibility, hard work, and family have influenced welfare legislation from colonial times to the present. Interested parties have debated the causes of poverty, sources and goals of assistance, and eligibility criteria. Broadly speaking, welfare policies fault individuals or structures for poverty; rely on private charities, volunteer organizations, or local, state, and federal governments for aid provision; and aim to assist the needy, modify recipient behavior, deter aid requests, and/or reform the welfare system. Policymakers have struggled to define aid eligibility, resulting in an implied hierarchy of deserving and undeserving recipients. The categories of deserving and undeserving have remained relatively constant since welfare's inception; what has changed are the criteria used to define them.

Class, gender, and race distinctions have pervaded discussions of recipient eligibility. Arguably forms of welfare, government programs associated with employment (e.g., social security, tax advantaged retirement plans, flexible spending accounts, and most group health insurance plans) are considered earned entitlements, not welfare. Implicitly, recipients of these types of aid are deserving of assistance. Welfare has acquired increasingly negative connotations, referring to public assistance programs associated with poor, minority, unwed, divorced, and separated mothers. Recipients of public assistance have been stigmatized as less deserving of aid, frequently leading to intense criticism of welfare programs.

Prior to 1935, individualist explanations of poverty prevailed, and relief efforts were largely at the local and state levels, relying on families and institutions for aid provision. Following the stock market crash on October 24, 1929, Americans experienced severe economic hardship and sought federal relief. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded with the New Deal and Social Security Act of 1935. Ending a nearly three-century tradition of local and state provision of aid, the Act relied on federal funds and signaled preference of structural over individually based explanations for poverty. The Act provided several forms of aid, including social insurance, work relief, and categorical assistance programs. A relatively low priority at the time, the categorical assistance program Aid to Dependent Children was the precursor to the largest and most controversial welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

For most of the 20th century, AFDC experienced increased criticism, due to caseload increases, rising program costs, and changing recipient demographics. Many families experienced difficulty leaving welfare rolls and escaping poverty. In response, President Clinton signed the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). [Page 834]PRWORA replaced the entitlement-based AFDC with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, giving states increased administrative control over welfare programs. PRWORA's passage sparked controversy; supporters praised the legislation for affirming traditional work and family values, whereas critics accused the law of harming millions of poor and lower-income working families.

For many reasons, including the Iraq War, PRWORA, which was set to expire in 2002, has operated under a series of continuing resolutions as Congress debates reauthorization proposals, many of which emphasize marriage promotion, work requirements, and social services.