Social Welfare

History

The history of institutional social welfare provision dates back to the medieval church, which entrusted the administration of charity to church leaders. Many charitable acts were administered through the church, [Page 750]which fostered the practice of the biblical principles of giving and service. Great Britain was the first nation to enact laws concerning the poor, the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Laws. These laws categorized the poor as worthy, impotent poor—the disabled and children—and unworthy poor— the able-bodied poor. It designated responsibility for the care of the worthy poor to the state, parish, and family. The earliest modern welfare laws were enacted in Germany in the 1880s, during which the government implemented a national social welfare policy through voluntary agencies. Not until the 1920s and 1930s did most Western countries adopt similar programs. Before then, families, local communities, and both religious and secular charities formed the backbone of the social welfare system.

In the United States, the Civil War spurred largescale relief projects such as the U.S. Sanitary Commission, the American Red Cross, and the Freedmen's Bureau to assist needy populations. During and after that period wealthy individuals and religious and secular charitable organizations began to address the problems of the poor, immigrants, and destitute as U.S. cities began to evolve. By the 19th century, private benevolent societies and self-help organizations played a significant role in the provision of social services. Organizations such as the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor and the Children's Aid Society began investigating social conditions in areas such as tenement housing and child welfare.

The beginning of the Progressive Era sparked the institutional work of charitable organizations such as the American Charity Organization Society (COS), which was founded in 1877 to help immigrants to assimilate and encourage poor persons to adopt a self-help aid model. COS focused on child welfare, employment, and skills and employment training of the poor. It predated the settlement house movement, which was another response to the consequences of the industrial society and immigration. Settlement houses were geared toward improving the living conditions of the poor and providing them with skills training. Settlement house workers settled among those they intended to help, becoming involved in the fabric of their neighborhoods and teaching by both modeling behavior and direct instruction. Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr established the most famous settlement house in 1889—Hull-House in Chicago. By World War I, the work of the leaders of the Progressive Era had declined and U.S. governmental agencies had become more devoted to social welfare, replacing the informal network of service.

The Great Depression of the 1930s prompted a systematic governmental response to increasing social welfare concerns. Thus, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal established Social Security in 1935. Social Security and Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) laid the foundations for the U.S. modern federal welfare state. ADC began as a small program in which the federal government provided cash allowances to aid widows, orphans, divorcées, or deserted mothers and their children. The Roosevelt administration pioneered the administration of U.S. social insurance and for the first time designated the government as a primary actor in the provision of social services to the poor. This facilitated the gradual expansion of social welfare beyond financial relief to the poor to include housing, rural problems, recreation and cultural activities, child welfare programs, and diverse forms of social insurance to all Americans. These expansions were later materialized by the Johnson administration's response to increased rates of national poverty in the 1960s that culminated in the declaration of a “War on Poverty.” The push to create a “Great Society” led to the establishment of Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, food and nutrition programs, urban revitalization initiatives, education and employment initiatives, and more child welfare and other programs. However, the liberalism of the U.S. welfare system was halted by the more conservative administrations in the 1970s and 1980s, which curbed federal welfare spending and began devolving social welfare responsibilities to the state level. Much of America's welfare state remained largely unchanged until 1996, when the Clinton administration enacted “welfare reform.” This legislation replaced AFDC with TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), restricting entitlement to public welfare to individuals following strict work and personal behavior change requirements and program time limits. With limited smaller block grants to states to finance these programs, counties and cities are asked to do more. This has left most of the responsibility for the provision of social services to local communities and private and charitable organizations.

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