Shapiro v. Thompson

Millions of children have benefitted from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) welfare program since its creation in 1935. With the intent to help needy children through a family environment, states were given latitude to determine the level of assistance available to indigent parents and their children for basic necessities. AFDC provided cash assistance to poor single-parent families with children, or to poor families with two parents where the main wage earner was physically or mentally incapacitated.

With the sweeping federal welfare reform legislation of 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced AFDC. The new Welfare-to-Work program provides set sums of federal money, "block grants," to states to administer welfare programs with almost complete local control over determining eligibility and benefits. With charges that AFDC made welfare a way of life, TANF requires parents to be working within two years of first receiving aid and limits aid to a maximum of five years in the lifetime of a family, even less in some states. State and local governments also assumed greater responsibility to generate more jobs and provide job training, career counseling, and job placement services.

TANF ended a six decade guarantee of federal welfare checks to all eligible low-income mothers and children, and removed many federal legal protections.