The Welfare Rights Movement In The 1960's

The welfare rights movement in the 1960s made basic income support available to more people than ever before. The decade prior to 1964 set the stage for the expansion of the pool of eligible individuals, but the explosion in magnitude of aid given during the movement itself allowed for substantial aid to reach those who were neediest. This substantive aid is what constitutes actual income support, rather than scant cash thrown at problem populations. Poor Blacks finally received the full aid they required, due to the lifting of eligibility restrictions in the ‘50s. Urban Whites had already been receiving aid when necessary, but the rural poor were struggling, as usual throughout history. The New Deal of the 1930s had primarily focused
Black or White, urban or rural, people who were on welfare were now receiving more substantial aid. The political pressures in the decade prior to 1964 prepared the explosion to aid more diverse people. This made more people – Blacks, in particular – eligible for aid, but this eligibility had started in the ‘50s. 1964 is simply when the magnitude of welfare given increased. This is important for people, because the aid was finally in amounts that would provide actual income support, as opposed to insubstantial benefits that wouldn’t allow persons to feel secure. When you add together your employment income and welfare received, you should feel financially comfortable. The lack of this comfort in part fueled the war on poverty; people who were already on aid, or continuously poor, were not visible in their struggle. “The war on poverty, finally, dramatized the contemporary rediscovery of poverty… The result was to lift poverty from benign neglect to a place on the public agenda. (Patterson, 2000, p. 149). No longer was aid neglected, but people were given the aid necessary to survive, in support of their
166). The poor were advocating for themselves, and they were heard, wherever they resided. Coincidentally – or perhaps not so – the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. The civil rights movement advanced Black Americans toward access to full rights. Coinciding with this movement was the movement for the poor to receive proper income support. No doubt were some of these poor also Black. Advocacy in all directions allowed a visibility for Black Americans, poor Americans, and Black Americans who were poor. This pressured financially privileged and White Americans to acknowledge the needs of Americans of color and of low income. Granted, the attitude toward welfare recipients, even after the welfare explosion, was that of scorn and judgement; critics of the welfare rights movement “blamed AFDC for contributing to illegitimacy and family breakup,” due to the myth of the absent father (Patterson, 2000, p. 168). This did cause a strain on the poor receiving aid, but the needy were still able to receive the income supports they required regardless of public