TreasureKY
Posts: 3032
Joined: 4/10/2007
From: Kentucky
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Louve00
Your questions made me curious, so I went to google and googled your question lol. But, I found out this....
Why did welfare start in the U.S?
The history of welfare in the U.S. started long before the government welfare programs we know were created. In the early days of the United States, the colonies imported the British Poor Laws. These laws made a distinction between those who were unable to work due to their age or physical health and those who were able-bodied but unemployed. The former group was assisted with cash or alternative forms of help from the government. The latter group was given public service employment in workhouses.
Throughout the 1800's welfare history continued when there were attempts to reform how the government dealt with the poor. Some changes tried to help the poor move to work rather than continuing to need assistance. Social casework, consisting of caseworkers visiting the poor and training them in morals and a work ethic was advocated by reformers in the 1880s and 1890s.
Prior to the Great Depression, the United States Congress supported various programs to assist the poor. One of these, a Civil War Pension Program was passed in 1862 and provided aid to Civil War Veterans and their families.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_welfare_start_in_the_U.S#ixzz17SiOKiPU
So, apparently help for the poor has been around for a long, long time.
**edited to italicize what I didn't say. 
My understanding is that throughout history there has pretty much always been some type of assistance available to the poor. I was, however, under the impression that here it was a bit more privately managed in the beginning, but I hadn't really considered the time we were a British colony and the influence that would have had.
We Americans do have a propensity to consider our history as starting with the American Revolution. 
Your find did prompt me to do a bit more research this evening, as well. I'll share some of what I found here as it was interesting.
The following is a relatively short (22 page) seminar paper on "The English Poor Laws 1795 and 1834: Imperatives and Disciplination of Property and Poverty". From it I gleaned the following paragraph that helped give me an idea of how things worked from the time of colonization until emancipation from British rule.
Ever since, poor relief has been intimately linked with moral responsibility of the church and religious houses distributed alms and reliefs to paupers. A statute of 1536 made the perishes responsible for the care of the poor, which assigned a crucial task for the next centuries. In 1572 the offi ce of the Overseer of the poor was created: They were chosen annually, unpaid and responsible for the conduct of the Justices of the Peace. Parishioners were supposed to contribute voluntarily to poor relief, but funds were quickly insufficient. In 1597/8 therefore, an Act enabled overseers to levy a poor rate on parish households. Together with some minor amendments, these provisions remained in force until 1834.
That's kind of an interesting twist... government giving church the authority to levy taxes.
After the formation of the United States of America, I found very little that specifically substantiates how much of this British influence was retained.
In 1798 there was the Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen. The details can be found at the link, but essentially every seaman contributed to a fund that was used "to provide for the temporary relief and maintenance of sick or disabled seamen, in the hospitals or other proper institutions now established in the several ports of the United States..." Surplus monies, along with private donations could also be used for the establishment of new hospitals.
This Act laid the foundation for the Marine Hospital Service founded in 1837.
While there were a few other seeds planted during that time (such as the Federal Government opening a one-room laboratory on Staten Island that would eventually grow to become the National Institutes of Health in 1930), it appears that the majority of the shift towards Federal government provided assistance began after 1913.
There was, of course, the Civil War Pension Program. I will point out that the program came into being at the same time as the establishment of a Federal income tax to support the war in 1861.
But before we had any income tax, I don't believe there was any extensive Federal Government assistance available. Even between 1861 and 1913 when the 16th Amendment was ratified, income taxes were an iffy proposition.
That is not to say that the Federal Government had no funding prior to the income tax. There were obviously other sources as the Department of the Treasury was established in 1789. However, I still believe that charity was considered more of a private concern than a government responsibility. The following excerpt is from "Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility in America" by Lawrence J. Friedman and Mark D. McGarvie.
During the period 1607-1861, American society rejected a communitarian social ideal and implemented a legal system respecting individual rights. Governmental authority was significantly diminished during this period, and private actions expressed the social ideals of Americans more than did governmental initiatives. Government was understood as a negative force, proscribing wrongs rather than creating rights. Its authority was consistent with Adam Smith's idea that government can place blame for injury but cannot extort benevolence. The first challenge to this system would not occur until the Civil War.
You can view a brief history of the obstacles that were maneuvered with regard to income taxes between the Civil War and the establishment of a permanent income tax on Americans by going to Wikipedia. The IRS does have a very brief history on its website, but it doesn't cover as much detail on this particular time period.
At times in the history of the US, there were other Federally legislated methods of assistance. There was the Bankruptcy Acts of 1800 and 1841, both of which were repealed within a few years, but there was eventually and more permanently legislation passed in 1898. You can view a time line of Bankruptcy Law in the United States online.
As has been mentioned, from the earliest colonial times local villages and towns provided aid to the needy in the form of almshouses and poorhouses. In the early 1900s many states began adopting "Mothers' Pension Laws" which helped single mothers keep their children with them.
All in all, it appears that before the new deal, most social insurance type programs were State or local-level programs supplemented heavily by private charity.
Of course, since the Federal Government pretty much just sends the money it collects right back to the States, those programs are still State managed. What seems to have all but disappeared is the government sponsored local-level programs... but private charity is still a strong force in the US.
There's been some very interesting arguments brought up here that I'd like to address, but as I've pretty much frittered away a good part of the day now already, I have some paying work I need to finish so I can help Firm keep us out of the poorhouse.
*sighs* It'll just have to keep until tomorrow.
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