Securing a right to welfare: Public assistance administration and the rule of law, 1935–1965

Between the New Deal and the War on Poverty, the U.S. social welfare system underwent a profound transformation. The Social Security Act of 1935, best known for its old-age insurance title, also authorized grants-in-aid to states to support categories of the poor. The conditions attached to the grants allowed the federal government, for the first time, to have a permanent, ongoing role in conversations about poor relief They also encouraged states to impose order and uniformity on local poor relief operations that were unaccustomed to supervision. This dissertation uses the records of agencies, courts, legislatures, public welfare workers, and reformers to reveal the decades of conflict that resulted from this restructuring, and the strategies that different interests employed as they competed to regulate the poor. One important finding is the use of rights language by federal administrators in the 1930s and 1940s. Decades before the welfare rights movement, they characterized welfare recipients as rights-holders and welfare benefits as a moral and legal entitlement. They wanted state and local welfare workers to understand how the new public assistance programs differed from the old poor law. A second major finding is the rising tension between federal administrators and state officials in the early cold war period. Administrative decisions over the inclusion of Native Americans and the confidentiality of welfare records became battles over states\u27 rights, local control, federal authority and expertise, and the desirability of a welfare state. By the 1960s, after several states flouted federal directives in the administration of their Aid to Dependent Children programs, it was clear that neither Congress nor the federal agency could resolve these disagreements; they spilled over into the courts. A final finding is the gradual acceptance, among all parties, of the rule of law. Before the New Deal, written rules, appeal mechanisms, and the principles of uniform treatment and due process were not fundamental to American poor relief By 1965, law permeated the system, even if different interpretations abounded