title: The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System.
abstract: Contrary to the popular view that the U.S. welfare system has been in a contractionary phase after the expansions of the welfare state in the 1960s, welfare spending resumed steady growth after a pause in the 1970s. However, although aggregate spending is higher than ever, there have been redistributions away from non-elderly and nondisabled families to families with older adults and to families with recipients of disability programs; from non-elderly, nondisabled single-parent families to married-parent families; and from the poorest families to those with higher incomes. These redistributions likely reflect long-standing, and perhaps increasing, conceptualizations by U.S. society of which poor are deserving and which are not.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, The Johns Hopkins University, 440 Mergenthaler Hall, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA, moffitt@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Moffitt
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D011632:Public Assistance / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D020954:Single-Parent Family; D012946:Social Welfare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States