Mothers' pensions

Introduced during the Progressive Era, they were among the earliest components of the modern American welfare state and were the first public cash assistance programs targeted to single mothers.

They were financed and administered by state and local governments, and served as a precursor to the federal Aid to Dependent Children program created by the Social Security Act of 1935.

[6][7] Mothers' pensions came with a number of eligibility criteria and generally required lengthy and intrusive application processes as well as supervision by case workers.

Additionally, in a small number of states relatives or guardians other than mothers were eligible for aid if they were the primary caretaker of a dependent child.

[11] Because funding and administration of mothers' pensions were generally left to localities, there existed significant disparities in aid availability between counties, even within the same state.

[8] The movement to institute mothers' pensions emerged during the Progressive Era, a period of widespread social activism and political reform spanning the 1890s to the 1920s.

By the time mothers' pensions were made redundant by the federal Aid to Dependent Children program in 1935, 46 states had adopted them.

[22][23] Indeed, mothers pensions succeeded at a time when most proposals for old-age, health, and unemployment insurance failed in the United States.

[24] Those programs, however, were all directed towards the breadwinning male wage earner; the United States led the way in "maternalist" benefits, which included mothers' pensions, limits on women's hours of work, minimum wage laws for female workers, and government agencies staffed principally by women (the United States Children's Bureau).

[29] Additionally, the expansion of the foster care system and the increasingly widely held view that children required individual attention contributed to the declining perception of child institutionalization.

While breaking with earlier views on family separation, mothers' pensions still drew heavily on a longstanding preoccupation with distinguishing the "deserving" from the "undeserving" poor.

[35] Additionally, unmarried or deserted mothers were often made ineligible for aid out of a fear that it could encourage husbands to leave their families.

[35] The mothers' pensions movement was substantially advanced by the evident inadequacy of private charity and existing public relief in providing for the poor (especially during the Panic of 1893).

By the mid-19th century, however, middle-class children had lost most of their economic utility and spent increasingly long periods of time in school.

[37] At the beginning of the 20th century, public aid for dependent children in their own homes began to emerge as an alternative to private charity and existing forms of outdoor relief.

[38] Certain organizations, especially the National Consumers' League and groups within the General Federation of Women's Clubs, began to offer scholarships to poor mothers commensurate with the wages their children would have earned had they been in the workforce rather than in school.

[39] One of the most important events spurring the creation of mothers' pensions was The White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, held in 1909.

At the conclusion of the conference, the participants released a resolution calling for mothers' pensions (though expressing a preference for private charity).

[40] According to Leff, "This resolution, though expressing a preference for privately funded mothers' pensions, catalyzed the drive for public legislation.

And, following the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which extended the right to vote to all women, politicians felt greater pressure to cater to the interests of female voters.

[20][44][45] In the view of sociologist and political scientist Theda Skocpol, it was the association of mothers' pensions with elite and middle-class married women—who dominated women's civics organizations—that enabled the mothers' pension movement to transform from "an idea initially sponsored by a few juvenile court judges into a national social movement and legislative reality".

[46] Mothers' pensions also had institutional support from the United States Children's Bureau, created in 1912 and staffed primarily by women.

[47] It "provided leadership and guidance to recipients and local administrators and, in the process, helped forge a network of support for this new public policy.

Most important, the Bureau financed and studied local administration, and as a result of its investigations, developed a reform agenda to improve the policy and practice of this early form of public provision to single-mother families".

[47] Despite public sympathy for widows and a broadly held view that family preservation should be encouraged, advocates for mothers' pensions faced some opposition.

[1] According to political scientist Christopher Howard, "The combination of ideological shift and interest-group pressure produced a rapid burst of legislative activity".

According to the historian Linda Gordon, "The whole experience of mothers' aid, from its conception to the evaluation of its administration, helped congeal a particular view of public welfare which conditioned, more than any other single factor, the future shape of ADC".

[57] More broadly, according to the social historian Roy Lubove:[59] However, he also noted that the mothers' pension movement "failed in the opportunity presented to modernize the public welfare system.

ADC would, in the words of political scientist Christopher Howard, "come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the American welfare state".