Welfare benefits are a matter of statutory entitlement for persons qualified to receive them and so procedural due process is applicable to their termination.

"[5] (d) The decision maker need not file a full opinion or make formal findings of fact or conclusions of law but should state the reasons for his determination and indicate the evidence he relied on.

The Court held that a person has a property interest in certain government entitlements, which require notice and a hearing before a governmental entity (either state or federal) takes them away.

The Goldberg court decided that such entitlements (like welfare payments, government pensions, professional licenses), are a form of "new property" that require pre-deprivation procedural protection and so did away with the traditional distinction between rights and privileges.

[9] This specific case dealt with 20 individuals who had been suspected of welfare fraud by New York City officials and were then denied municipal benefits.

[3] Twenty residents of New York City, including John Kelly, appealed the termination of their benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.

[11] The decision answered questions that had been unresolved in the previous Supreme Court cases of Rudder v. United States[12] and Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham.