Welfare Reform and Local Administration of Aid to Dependent Children in Virginia

Abstract

Comprehensive welfare reform has been a prominent issue at the national level in the past two Congresses. Both the Administration and the Congress have offered major proposals, and other suggestions for revision of the present welfare system hive,cone from persons and groups ranging from conferences of governors and mayors to the League of Women Voters and the National Welfare Rights Organization.' Although programs such as Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled and Aid to the Blind are involved in those proposals, the major issues revolve around the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program (AFDC). This program has been plagued by burgeoning rolls, lack of state funds and an impossible work load on agency staff. It further suffers from the continuing inability of social casework and manpower programs to provide an exit from dependency wide enough to accommodate very many Welfare families. These difficulties are, indeed, very real. In addition, a more probing analysis of AFDC finds even deeper problems concerning the "rights" of recipients and the difficulties of protecting those rights in a system of broad standards, wide discretion and a fundamentally coercive relationship between the dispenser and the recipient of sustenance.