Word: aids
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...become what Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas calls "constitutional nonpersons." Since the 1935 Social Security Act established the U.S. welfare system, federal officials, state agencies, municipal departments and even individual welfare workers have set up a profusion of separate standards as to who should and should not get aid...
Illegitimate Siblings. Restrictions are highly varied and often arbitrary. The reason is that although the Federal Government pays 58% of the welfare bills, it has allowed the states almost complete freedom in deciding aid eligibility. The 14th Amendment forbids unreasonable state discrimination against individuals. But not only have some states enacted unfair eligibility provisions; they have also administered their own valid rules unfairly...
...example, Louisiana families with dependent children were cut off from aid if they lived in "unsuitable" homes, meaning those sheltering any illegitimate child. Off the rolls went more than 23,000 children, most of them Negro and many of them legitimate half-brothers or -sisters of an illegitimate sibling. A federal ruling struck down that regulation, but other rules affecting children remain. Currently under attack is Georgia's "employable mothers" law, which allows counties to cut Negro mothers off the family-aid rolls whenever farmers need $2.50-a-day crop pickers. In 21 states, grants may not exceed...
Residency rules are just as stringent. Federal law allows states to require newcomers with dependent children to wait as long as one year to become eligible for U.S.-backed aid. States can also withhold the funds of their own welfare programs for as long as they choose. A South Dakota law can bar needy outsiders from ever collecting welfare; in Massachusetts they can be deported to their native states. All such requirements sit uneasily with the spirit of a 1941 Supreme Court decision voiding California's "anti-Okie" law and guaranteeing indigents free access to any state. And last...
...Another long-standing grievance is the practice of raiding homes of mothers on welfare to see whether there is a man around. If even a casual lover is flushed, he may be designated a "substitute father," which can disqualify the family for welfare aid. The raids ae conducted without search warrants or voluntary consent. Earlier this year, after Social Worker Benny Max Parrish refused to go on one, the California Supreme Court ruled that pre-dawn raids aimed at discovering a "man in the house" are unconstitutional. The California ruling may prompt challenges to such raids in other states...