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U. S. Social Welfare Policy, Lance Liebman
U. S. Social Welfare Policy, Lance Liebman
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Alstott's paper tells an important story about the current moment in American federalism as interpreted through the lens of the social welfare system. From its beginning in 1935, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was the most important intellectual ingredient in the American commitment (or not) to poor families. AFDC was called an exercise in "cooperative federalism." States established and administered programs, receiving reimbursement for roughly fifty percent of their expenditures from the national government, which, however, imposed certain programmatic conditions.
Since the Republicans took control of Congress in the 1994 elections, Congress has emphasized two themes: cutting …
Legality, Bureaucracy, And Class In The Welfare System, William H. Simon
Legality, Bureaucracy, And Class In The Welfare System, William H. Simon
Faculty Scholarship
When lawyers confronted the welfare system in the 1960's, they charged it with oppressive moralism, personal manipulation, and invasion of privacy. They focused attention on the "man-in-the-house" rules that disqualified families on the basis of the mother's sexual conduct and the "midnight raids" in which welfare workers forced their way into recipients' homes searching for evidence of cohabitation.
When I represented welfare recipients from 1979 to 1981, the workers showed little interest in policing their morals or intruding on their private lives. The "man-in-the-house" rule and the practice of unannounced or nighttime visits had been repudiated. Yet the pathologies emphasized …