Exploring American Single-mother Families’ Welfare In The20th Century: Its Origin, Expansion And Retrenchment

The history of American single mother families’ welfare reflects the change ofAmerican family structure, women’s social status and the social ethos from liberalismto neo-conservatism during the20thcentury. Although many programs under theSocial Security Act provided assistance to the disadvantaged groups like singlemothers, the most controversial program is Aid to Families with Dependent Children(AFDC), which did not draw the excessive public attention at the very beginning. Butthe American public generally blamed it for causing many social problems likemarriage dissolution, juvenile delinquency, illegitimate birth and welfare fraud and soforth. Therefore, issues and problems around this program are worth discussion so asto explore the factors that influenced its development in the20thcentury.The first chapter analyzes the foundation of Aid to Dependent Children, theformer AFDC program under the Social Security Act by the Roosevelt administration.The historical background and the public’s attitude towards welfare assistancecovering widows, the main group of single mothers also analyzed in this chapter.The second chapter describes the expansion of single mother families in the1960s and the welfare reform under the Kennedy and Johnson administration. Theauthor also devotes this chapter to discussing the historical reason for the explorationof the welfare population and the change from welfare to workfare.The third chapter is devoted to the welfare retrenchment during the1970s-80s.In this period of time, AFDC underwent three reforms under different threeadministrators, respectively Nixon, Carter and Reagan. The author will further discussthe influence of social ethos and welfare racialization on decision makers’ attitudetowards welfare reforms.