The History of Welfare

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Is the call for work requirements to get entitlements like SNAP and Medicaid anything new? Not at all is the short answer. All the way back in Elizabethan England, there was this idea of the deserving poor who were too old or too young or too sick to work. In 1931, only 3% of the people getting these mothers pensions were black. There were about 3,000 white families who got this help and only 39 black families.

With the debt ceiling deadline approaching, Republicans want to expand rules that require welfare recipients to work. Vox’s Dylan Scott and Marketplace’s Krissy Clark explain.

This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Amina Al-Sadi and Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Michael Raphael, and hosted by Noel King.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained

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