The History of the Welfare System

"On August 22, 1996 President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 (Public Law 104-193). PRWORA replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program that had been in existence for 60 years." (*)

As Ronald Reagan, during his presidency, had claimed that even mothers with infants should not be allowed to become dependent on the welfare system, and that providing assistance for children under one year of age constituted such "dependency," the system took an abrupt turn from its original purpose-- and, contrary to popular opinion, the most negative impact has not been the economic factor.

The 1935 Social Security Act was passed by Congress during the period of extreme hardship from the Depression. Not yet termed "Aid to Dependent Children," a part of this Act, known as Title IV, was to provide assistance to widows for the care of their young children. The program was eventually expanded to cover children under fifteen years of age, with higher ages allowable by the states if the children were attending school.

In 1968, states were required to begin job training programs, known as WIN (Work Incentive); the stipulation remained that women who had children under six years of age were not required to work. Given the "ways of the day," it was generally assumed that mothers of small children would eventually remarry; and also that the mothers themselves were best to provide childcare for their preschool-aged children.

The System changed. In 'not allowing anyone to become dependent on the welfare system,' the shift has gone off economic necessity and onto a much deeper issue. As some states specify "an application for assistance is a request for help in finding a job," the first factor to be considered is that mothers who request "help" are essentially giving away their right to provide daily care for their small children-- and their children's right to be taken care of in their own homes by their own mothers. The general rule-of-thumb is that upon requesting financial assistance-- now known as TANF: Temporary Aid to Needy Families-- a mother is to place her child, including infants, in some type of daycare and either go out into the workforce or take "training programs" to make her employable.

The second factor to consider in the "new" welfare system is that it actively discourages mothers from marrying. As the entire emphasis is now on "get the mothers out into the workforce," and adding that the period during which they can receive "benefits" greatly extends if they remain single, the new version of the welfare system is both undermining traditional family values and even contributing to the poverty level by its continuing focus on keeping mothers single and in the workforce.

As in the era when the welfare system was first started it was virtually unheard of for mothers of small children to place their children in someone else's care and go out to work, as well as it being naturally assumed that the mother of a young child would not remain single throughout the child's growing-up years, this is one subject on which everything would have been better if it had been left to its original plan.

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