A welfare payment in cash. This alternative to in-kind benefits gives welfare recipients more freedom in their...

With few exceptions, the demand for welfare assistance increased sharply in the 1990s. Nonetheless, one-third of the poor received no benefits in 2000. Several reasons explain why more than 33 percent of those living below the poverty line did not...

The U.S. Social Security Administration defines social welfare expenditures as the cost of "cash benefits, services, and the administration of public programs that directly benefit individuals and families." This broad definition includes...

Generally speaking, the American income maintenance system is divided into two "tracks" based on the relationship of beneficiaries to the labor force. For the so-called "insurance-like" programs, notably Old Age and...

Welfare is financial assistance paid by taxpayers to people who do not support themselves. Some welfare is general, while specific and can only be invoked under certain circumstances, such as a scholarship. Welfare payments can be made to individuals or...

CONCORD - A federally mandated welfare program designed to help keep families together goes into effect tomorrow. For the first time, under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Unemployed Parent Program, qualified families with both parents at home will be permitted to collect...

WASHINGTON - There's a remarkable consensus in the capital that, after the September terrorist attacks, the United States ought to provide more foreign aid. The Bush administration agrees - but it also is arguing that the nation has to exert more influence over how...

Wade Horn, the Bush administration's point man for welfare reform, Head Start and abstinence education, resigned Monday as assistant secretary for children and families.In the Department of Health and Human Services, Horn oversaw a $46 billion budget and 65 programs that serve vulnerable children and...

Eleven years after Congress changed welfare to focus on work, some states are sidestepping the rules by starting their own welfare programs.They're shifting around existing accounts so their most vulnerable residents don't have to meet work requirements. In the process they're making it easier for...

Essay discusses a personal subject of my life on welfare.