Criticism
Early in the program, there were concerns about whether this program encouraged unwed motherhood. In the 1960s through 1980s, Nobel Prize winning physicist William Shockley argued that AFDC and other similar programs tended to encourage childbirth, especially among less productive members of society (particularly blacks, whom he considered to be genetically inferior to whites), causing a reverse evolution (dysgenic effect), founded on the premises that: there is a correlation between financial success and intelligence; and that intelligence is hereditary. Shockley was influential in bringing recognition to this hypothesis among the public and Congress.
Some advocates complained that the rule had the effect of breaking up marriages and promoting matriarchy (see also single-parent family).
... the AFDC program tended to treat households with a cohabiting male who was not the natural father of the children much more leniently than those with a resident spouse or father of the children. This feature created a clear disincentive for marriage and also a clear incentive for divorce, because women who married face the reduction or loss of their AFDC benefits.Lucy A. Williams and Jean Hardisty point to the existence of policies reacting to this perceived problem in some states such as "man-in-the-house" rule:
States had wide discretion to determine eligibility and many states conditioned the receipt of welfare on the sexual morality of the mother, using "suitable home" and "man in the house" rules to disqualify many African American single mothers. The Right's Campaign Against WelfareThe "man-in-the-house" rule was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1968 (see King v. Smith).
In 1984, libertarian author Charles Murray suggested that welfare causes dependency. He argued that as welfare benefits increased, the number of recipients also increased; this behavior, he said, was rational: there is little reason to work if one can receive benefits for a long period of time without having to work. His later work and that of Richard J. Herrnstein and others suggested possible merit to the theory of a dysgenic effect, however, the data are not entirely clear. Right or wrong, this argument was among the stepping stones leading to the modification of AFDC toward TANF.
Read more about this topic: Aid To Families With Dependent Children
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)