Aid to Families with Dependent Children

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was a federal assistance program in the United States in effect from 1935 to 1997, created by the Social Security Act (SSA) and administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provided financial assistance to children whose families had low or no income.

The program was created under the name Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) by the Social Security Act of 1935 as part of the New Deal.

It was created as a means tested entitlement which subsidized the income of families where fathers were "deceased, absent, or unable to work".

[7] In 1967 the federal government began requiring states to establish the paternity of children eligible for the program, and extended benefits to "unemployed male parents with a work history".

[2]: 31 A number of states enacted so called "man-in-the-house" rules, which disqualified families if there was any adult male present in the household whatsoever.

[3]: 77 The year 1967 saw the establishment of the thirty-and-a-third rule, which allowed families to keep their first $30 earned along with one third of their income following the first $30 without the change affecting their eligibility for benefits.

[30] In 1996, President Bill Clinton negotiated with the Republican-controlled Congress to pass the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which drastically restructured the program.

"[31] In 2006, a New Republic editorial wrote, "A broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster—and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped.

Seal of the United States Department of Health and Human Services , which administered the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program
The overall decline in welfare monthly benefits (in 2006 dollars) [ 1 ]
Nonmarital birth rates by race in the United States from 1940 to 2014. Data are from the National Vital Statistics System Reports published by the CDC National Center for Health Statistics . Note: Before 1969, the rates for all minority groups were consolidated in the category of "Non-White." [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] [ 21 ] [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] [ 25 ] [ 26 ] [ 27 ] [ 28 ]