Who invented welfare system

Starting with Illinois in , the "mother's pension" movement sought to provide state aid for poor fatherless children who would remain in their own homes cared for by their mothers. In effect, poor single mothers would be excused from working outside the home. Welfare reformers argued that the state pensions would also prevent juvenile delinquency since mothers would be able to supervise their children full-time. By , mother's pension programs were operating in all but two states.

They varied greatly from state to state and even from county to county within a state. Administered in most cases by state juvenile courts, mother's pensions mainly benefitted families headed by white widows. These programs excluded large numbers of divorced, deserted, and minority mothers and their children.

Few private and government retirement pensions existed in the United States before the Great Depression. The prevailing view was that individuals should save for their old age or be supported by their children. About 30 states provided some welfare aid to poor elderly persons without any source of income.

Local officials generally decided who deserved old-age assistance in their community. The emphasis during the first two years of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" was to provide work relief for the millions of unemployed Americans.

Federal money flowed to the states to pay for public works projects, which employed the jobless. Some federal aid also directly assisted needy victims of the Depression. The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called "unemployables" widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled. But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were declining steeply.

In addition to old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, the Social Security Act established a national welfare system. The federal government guaranteed one-third of the total amount spent by states for assistance to needy and dependent children under age 16 but not their mothers.

Additional federal welfare aid was provided to destitute old people, the needy blind, and crippled children. Although financed partly by federal tax money, the states could still set their own eligibility requirements and benefit levels.

This part of the law was pushed by Southern states so they could control the coverage made available to their African-American population. This is how welfare began as a federal government responsibility. Roosevelt and the members of Congress who wrote the welfare provisions into the Social Security Act thought that the need for federal aid to dependent children and poor old people would gradually wither away as employment improved and those over 65 began to collect Social Security pensions.

But many Americans, such as farm laborers and domestic servants, were never included in the Social Security old-age retirement program. Also, since , increasing divorce and father desertion rates have dramatically multiplied the number of poor single mothers with dependent children.

Since the Great Depression, the national welfare system expanded both in coverage and federal regulations. From its inception, the system drew critics. Some complained that the system did not do enough to get people to work. Others simply believed the federal government should not administer a welfare system. Search the website Search the catalogue. Search the archives Search our website. Search our website Search our records.

About us Education Records Information management Archives sector. Search documents and resources Search tips. Study this vision, the expectations it created and the challenges it posed for governments. Witte, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin.

A final page committee report was filed on January 15, and sent to the Congress for hearings two days later, accompanied by draft legislative language. Following seven months of Congressional hearings and negotiations, on August 14, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. The framers of the Act also recognized that certain groups of people had needs for particular services which cash assistance alone could not or should not provide.

To meet these needs small formula grants for the states were authorized in relation to: Maternal and Child Health, Crippled Children, Child Welfare, and medical assistance for the aged.

A fourth program of public assistance — Aid to the Disabled — was added in The basic shape of the state-federal public welfare system formed by the Social Security Act of remained largely intact until when Congress combined the cash assistance programs serving needy adults Aid for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled into the Supplementary Income SSI program, making it a federally administered program under the U.

Social Security Administration. In , Title XX of the Act was enacted, consolidating most of the social services provisions of the various cash assistance titles into a single program of social services for needy citizens. Under the terms of the Social Security Act of , each state had to first choose whether or not to participate in one of the new public welfare programs. States retained major control over setting the requirements governing client eligibility and the level of cash benefits paid to recipients.

Initially, federal financial participation in the cost of benefits paid to recipients was determined according to a formula which fixed federal reimbursement to the level of cash benefits established by a state. In addition, the federal government agreed to pay fifty percent of the administrative costs incurred by a state. It was also a condition of eligibility that the individual fit one of the established categories, that is: to be aged, blind or a child living in a household without a father.

For many years, this limitation of the federal-state public assistance programs contributed to the phenomenon of fathers voluntarily leaving a family so their children could receive public assistance. Further expansion of medical assistance for the aged occurred in with the enactment of Medicaid Title XIX for eligible public welfare recipients.

The basic shape of the state-federal public welfare system formed by the Social Security Act remained largely intact until when the Congress federalized the cash assistance programs serving adults Aid to the Aged, Blind, and Disabled into the Supplemental Security Income SSI program.

In , Title XX of the Act was enacted, consolidating most of the social service provisions of the various cash assistance titles into a single program of social services for needy citizens, with a cap on the amount of money the states could claim as federal financial participation for the provision of social services. For more information, visit the U.

Origins of the state and federal public welfare programs Social Welfare History Project.