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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Welfare Reform: An Historical Overview, Richard K. Caputo
Welfare Reform: An Historical Overview, Richard K. Caputo
Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest
This essay provides an historical overview of welfare reform efforts prior to enactment of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 by the 104th Congress. The author argues that the 1996 Act reaffirmed the labor market as the major arbiter of economic well-being of American citizens. In so doing, passage of the Act signified the formal end of income maintenance for able-bodied parents and released the federal government from assuming major responsibility for reducing poverty per se.
Welfare Reform: An Historical Overview, Richard K. Caputo
Welfare Reform: An Historical Overview, Richard K. Caputo
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
This essay provides an historical overview of welfare reform efforts prior to enactment of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 by the 104th Congress. The author argues that the 1996 Act reaffirmed the labor market as the major arbiter of economic well-being of American citizens. In so doing, passage of the Act signified the formal end of income maintenance for able-bodied parents and released the federal government from assuming major responsibility for reducing poverty per se.
Reluctant Charity: Poor Laws In The Original Thirteen States, William P. Quigley
Reluctant Charity: Poor Laws In The Original Thirteen States, William P. Quigley
University of Richmond Law Review
The poor laws of the original thirteen states can best be described as reluctant public charity. Assistance was provided to some of the poor but, when provided, was strictly rationed to those local residents considered worthy of help. Visitors, strangers and nonresident poor people were not helped and were legally run out of town. Poor relief for the locals was frequently given in ways that were demeaning and destructive to families. Poor people were always expected to work, and even poor children were taken from their families by the authorities and apprenticed to others. Poor adults that could work were …