Following the Great Depression (1929–1939), the United States developed its first programs meant to combat and prevent poverty. The programs discussed in this section fall under the category of social welfare or public assistance. This group of programs is meant to alleviate the effects of poverty, and applicants must pass a means test in order to receive benefits. The benefit levels are determined by factors within each individual case and depend on the program.

Supplemental Security Income

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federal program that serves low-income Americans who are over the age of 65, blind, and/or have a disability. It is funded by general tax revenues rather than Social Security payroll taxes. The benefits provided under SSI are intended to help recipients pay for food, clothing, and shelter—the basic necessities (Social Security Administration, 2015a). The income level at which one qualifies is the same nationwide. Although it is a federal program, some states supplement the payments made to recipients (Social Security Administration, 2009). The maximum federal benefit payment in 2022 for SSI was $1,261 for an eligible couple and $841 for an eligible individual (Social Security Administration, 2022).

Medicaid

Established as an addition to the Social Security Act in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Medicaid came into existence simultaneously with Medicare. People often get the names of these programs confused with each other; an easy way to remember the difference is to say “Medicaid is public aid.” That is, Medicaid is health insurance available for the poor. Along with the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid provides insurance to 72.2 million Americans who might otherwise not be able to afford doctor’s visits, emergency room visits, hospital stays, or medications (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2021). Medicaid is funded through a combination of state and federal monies and is administered entirely by the states (Cox et al., 2016; Matthews, 2015). States had the option to expand Medicaid with federal funds designated by the Affordable Care Act; 39 states had done so as of 2022 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2022).

Housing Choice Voucher Program

Commonly known as Section 8, the housing choice voucher program provides funding assistance to low-income families looking to obtain housing. There are four main kinds of vouchers: a Section 8 Project-Based voucher, Section 8 Housing Choice voucher, Section 202 Housing for the Elderly, and Section 811 Housing for Persons with Identified Disabilities, a voucher that can be used anywhere in the housing market.

To receive any kind of voucher, an applicant must qualify through the completion of a means application process. Different housing authorities have different income maximums for people to be eligible to receive assistance in these programs. The income limits for these programs are updated on an annual basis. For example, the top income for a family of four in Jackson County, Oregon, to qualify for a housing voucher in 2023 would need to be under $30,000, with the voucher being $621 for a two-bedroom. The family would be allowed two persons per bedroom, and details about how many people per bedroom depending on bedroom size, the relation of the occupants, and the ages of people residing in a bedroom.

Recipients of different kinds of vouchers still have to pay a portion of their rent every month, referred to as the total tenant payment (TTP). While many people who use housing vouchers live in housing projects, others live in residential homes, apartments, or other types of dwellings. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets eligibility limits based on family income and fair market rents (HUD, n.d.).

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Formerly known as food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides financial assistance for low-income people to purchase food. Similar to the way the poverty line is designated, SNAP benefits are based upon a frugal but healthy meal plan. However, that plan (which the USDA calls “nutritionally adequate”) requires nutrition knowledge, storage space, access to affordable markets, and equipment that may not be available or possessed by the poor (Levitan et al., 1998).

Food stamps began as a pilot program in several states thanks to an executive order by President John F. Kennedy, and they were made permanent by his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964 (Edelman, 2012; U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2014). By 1974, all counties in every state had to adopt a food stamps program, which made it “the country’s single most effective intervention against poverty” and “unquestionably a successful public policy story” (Abramsky, 2013, p. 74; Edelman, 2012, p. 12). In 2019, 38 million Americans used SNAP benefits, just like the person in figure 5.5 (Hall, 2021).

SNAP benefits currently give five million Americans an income boost that brings them above the poverty line, according to the Department of Agriculture (2014). SNAP benefits vary widely by state, with 2014’s average monthly benefit per household of $463 in Hawaii at the high end and New Hampshire’s $193 bringing up the rear. The average payment per household across all states in 2014 was $239 (or $139.50 per person, since the average SNAP household has 2.0 people). (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2018).

There is an impression that people who use SNAP make bad diet choices, but the evidence doesn’t support that assertion. SNAP participants are less likely to have excessive sodium in their diet, are less likely to exceed recommended maximum intake of saturated fats, and are just as likely to have adequate intake of vitamins and minerals (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2015b). There are undoubtedly some people making unhealthy food choices, just as there are in other income groups, but SNAP participants face more stigma in general, including about food choices.

Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans

Formerly known as WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children), Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans provides food, nutrition services, and access to health care for eligible women (typically pregnant women or new mothers), infants, and children up to age five who are considered to be at nutritional risk (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2015a).

Though the official title of the program is no longer WIC, that name continues to be used even on a number of government websites, and you may have seen food for sale at your local grocery store on shelves labeled “WIC item.” Families with an income up to 185% of the poverty line (for instance, $49,025 for a family of four in 2021) are eligible to receive benefits (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2021).

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

Under the Social Security Act, one of the public assistance programs founded was Aid to Dependent Children (ADC). The program was originally designed to provide financial support to low-income single mothers, often widows. The prevailing social sentiment of the day was that a mother’s place was in the home, so the government provided ADC so these single mothers could care for their children at home with the help of public assistance (Levitan et al., 1998).

From the beginning, however, the program’s delivery has had an element of institutional racism to it. Several states implemented policies after the founding of ADC that gave state employees administering the program the ability to deny benefits to any applicants that were deemed not to have “suitable homes.” In practice, this meant nonwhite and families with children born out of traditional heteronormative marriage were disproportionately denied benefits (Levitan et al., 1998; Morgen et al., 2010; Schorr, 2001). Ideologically, the thinkers behind the expansion of welfare recognized that racism had contributed to income inequality and poverty; sadly, the programs they succeeded in putting into place served as yet another part of the problem (Morgen et al., 2010).

The program was rechristened Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in the 1960s as it expanded to provide financial assistance to two-parent families rather than just households headed up by single parents. By the 1990s, a program that had originally been designed to care mostly for widowed mothers was more likely to be taking care of mothers who had never been married (Schorr, 2001).

As a bipartisan initiative, “welfare reform” in the 1990s instituted major changes to the AFDC program. The new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families was time-limited, required parents to work and divulge deeply personal information, and limited the federal government’s future spending. As a result of these reforms, TANF reaches only 21% of eligible families in poverty whereas AFDC reached a peak of 82% of families experiencing poverty in 1979 and 68% of families experiencing poverty in 1996, the year prior to “welfare reform” (CBPP, 2022).

TANF recipients receive cash benefits equalling less than 30% of the federal poverty level in the majority of states. Basic assistance to families used to comprise 71% of the spending on TANF, but now families receive only 22% of all TANF funds to support their basic needs (CBPP, 2022). A 2022 report involving former National Football League quarterback Brett Favre provides an instructive example on how $6 million in TANF dollars can be spent on a volleyball stadium instead of the basic needs of families (Pittman & Pittman, 2022).

The social climate began to favor more women, including single mothers, entering the workforce. However, the AFDC rules until the mid-1960s required AFDC mothers to report any income they made so it could be deducted from their benefits. Unless the mother found a job that could pay them more than their AFDC benefits plus the cost of childcare, it simply made more sense to stay at home. They got no further ahead by working a low-paying job; they would be less financially stable and spend less time with their kids (Schorr, 2001).

Families were also getting smaller, as shown in figure 5.6, despite popular belief that unmarried mothers on welfare were having as many kids as possible to maximize their benefits. While a third of AFDC families had four or more kids in 1969, that was true for only about 10% of families receiving these benefits in 1987; by 1995, the average size of a family on AFDC had fallen from 4.0 to 2.8 (Levitan et al., 1998; Schorr, 2001).

This all led up to the elimination of AFDC in the 1990s. Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 and President Clinton signed it into law. This completely replaced AFDC with a program whose name rang a bit ominously: (TANF) (Morgan, Acker, & Weigt, 2010).

That first word is the key: temporary. The belief was that the vast differences between AFDC and TANF’s rules would push low-income parents to “get off the couch” and into the workforce, if for no other reason than the benefits would run out. There were further provisions put into place as well. AFDC didn’t require work, but TANF benefits would end after two years in most cases if a recipient wasn’t working.

Was it effective? The language and idea that was used and considered for these programs when started was mixed. It did not consider how some communities had systemic barriers that they needed to overcome and it was not just parents who needed these supports.

Social safety net programs are supposed to be temporary for people; however, over the implementation of the program, the population of people who are in need of support for TANF are in need of much more long-term supports become of the lack of change in the federal poverty guidelines and the increase in cost of living in every other aspect. The idea is temporary in a society that has not had an increase in their federal poverty guidelines in decades and not considering how global pandemics, social unrest, racial tensions, and climate change have deeply impacted how everyone is not living. The fact that a single-income household still cannot make enough money for their monthly bills but makes “too much” for TANF or Free or Reduced Lunch at their children’s schools is incomprehensible. But this is America.

All the programs noted in this section are not only social safety net programs but also part of the many systems that we human service providers will be working in and trying to reform to be more equitable for all clients and communities, including those that are underserved and marginalized.

Licenses and Attributions

“Social Insurance Programs” is adapted from “Poverty and Financial Assistance” by Mick Cullen and Matthew Cullen, Social Work and Social Welfare and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Adaptations by Elizabeth B. Pearce include light editing, vocabulary and context changes to adapt for the human services field, and updated images. Revised by Martha Ochoa-Leyva.

Figure 5.5. “Buying food with the EBT card” by Bread for the World is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Figure 5.6. “Family of Three” by iMorpheus is licensed under CC BY 2.0.