“Social welfare is the sum of measures developed by a society in order to cope with its social problems” (Titmuss 47)."

Social welfare, as a concept, is a related system of social institutions in any society, a system unified by common values, goals, and operational principles; those institutional aspects of social life which express the collective concern of the society for the well-being of it’s member as individuals and in family and community groups” (Smith 17).

Since the eighteenth century, the United States has provided limited forms of relief for the poverty-stricken, usually through churches, private charities, or local governments. Considerable debate existed in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regarding the relative merits of “indoor” versus “outdoor” relief. Indoor relief provided support for the poor within institutions, such as workhouses and almshouses. Outdoor relief did not require beneficiaries to reside in public institutions” (Rank 13).

Outdoor relief increased in popularity by the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but began to wane by the nineteenth century. It was felt that outdoor relief encouraged pauperism.
By the latter half of the nineteenth century, indoor relief had become the dominant legal method of providing for the poor in the U.S. and it remained so until the Great Depression.

Before the depression in 1929, 2.86 million individuals were unemployed in the U.S. By 1933, the number reached 15 million. “The scope of the economic decline was unprecedented, with many “solid citizens” joining the ranks of the poor” (14). This forced many Americans to apply for aid from the government to help support them.

For a family to qualify for welfare, a family’s income and assets must fall below a certain level. This means that programs like AFDC, the Supplemental Income (SSI), and General Assistance (GA) are aimed entirely at the poverty and near-poverty populations.