Welfare Reform
...flourished, and the stock market soared. It was as though nothing could go wrong. Then on October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed. The crash sent shockwaves throughout the economy. Banks failed. Businesses closed. Millions found themselves out of work. The Great Depression, which would last through the 1930s, had begun. So what did all this mean?
When the Great Depression began, about 18 million elderly, disabled, and single mothers with children already lived at a bare subsistence level in the United States. State and local governments together with private charities helped these people. By 1933, another 13 million Americans had been thrown out of work. Suddenly, state and local governments and charities could no longer provide even minimum assistance for all those in need. Food riots broke out. Desertions by husbands and fathers increased. Homeless families in cities lived in public parks and shanty towns. Desperate times began to put into question the old American notion that if a man worked hard enough, he could always take care of himself and his family.
The effect of the Depression on poor children was particularly severe. Grace Abbott, head of the federal Children's Bureau, reported that in the spring of 1933, 20 percent of the nation's school children showed evidence of poor nutrition, housing, and medical care. School budgets were cut and in some cases schools were shut down for lack of money to pay teachers. An estimated 200,000 boys left home to wander the streets and beg because of the poor economic condition of their families. Now imagine going through all of this as a black person. Everything would seem as it were doubled so to speak just on the basis of skin color.
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt focused mainly on creating jobs for the masses of unemployed workers, he also backed the idea of federal aid for poor children...
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