The early American welfare state

The opinions of the Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson and Franklin, about welfare are described in an article by Professor Thomas West of Hillsdale College. West examines Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (particular Query 8 and Query 14) and a few of his letters, Franklin's On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, and early laws. He also points out that Locke's Second Treatise states that a man "ought" "to preserve the rest of mankind" "when his own preservation comes not in competition." Franklin and Jefferson were critical of Britain's poor laws, advocated a form of social insurance, and, to put it somewhat anachronistically, advocated a liberal welfare state in contradistinction to a Social Democratic or Christian Democratic welfare state.

West states the following characteristics of the early American welfare state:

• The government of the community, not just private charity, assumes responsibility for its poor. This is far from the "throw them in the snow" attitude that is so often attributed to pre-1900 America.

• Welfare is kept local so that the administrators of the program will know the actual situations of the persons who ask for help. This will prevent abuses and freeloading. The normal human ties of friendship and neighborliness will partly animate the relationship of givers and recipients.

• A distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor is carefully observed. Able-bodied vagabonds get help, but they are required to work in institutions where they will be disciplined. Children and the disabled, on the other hand, are provided for, not lavishly but without public shame. The homeless and beggars will not be abandoned, but neither will they populate the streets. They will be treated with toughness or mercy according to their circumstances.

• Jefferson's idea of self-reliance was in fact family reliance, based on the traditional division of labor between husband and wife. Husbands were legally required to be their families' providers; wives were not. Nonsupporting husbands were shamed and punished by being sent to the poorhouse.

• Poor laws to support individual cases of urgent need were not intended to go beyond a minimal safety net. Benefit levels were low. The main remedy for poverty in a land of opportunity was marriage and work.

West goes on to state that the early system was much more effective at relieving poverty than the current system, but whether his analysis is sound or not is a question I'll leave to the economists.