The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System

Robert Moffitt

Demography, 2015, vol. 52, issue 3, 729-749

Abstract: Contrary to the popular view that the U.S. welfare system has been in a contractionary phase after the expansions of the welfare state in the 1960s, welfare spending resumed steady growth after a pause in the 1970s. However, although aggregate spending is higher than ever, there have been redistributions away from non-elderly and nondisabled families to families with older adults and to families with recipients of disability programs; from non-elderly, nondisabled single-parent families to married-parent families; and from the poorest families to those with higher incomes. These redistributions likely reflect long-standing, and perhaps increasing, conceptualizations by U.S. society of which poor are deserving and which are not. Copyright Population Association of America 2015

Keywords: Welfare; Poverty; Single mothers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

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DOI: 10.1007/s13524-015-0395-0

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