In colonial times, several places used to have workhouses in order to provide work for people who were able to do it. People would work at menial jobs for several hours a day in order to barely get by. It was not uncommon for people to die in the poorhouse due to cramped conditions and bad food. The conditions at several workhouses were made even worse as they were in close proximity to prisons and asylums as people viewed poverty as either a crime or some other moral failing. Blackwell's Island in New York was one of the more infamous workhouse/prison combinations. People could also be given work outdoors in chain gangs on vagrancy charges; this was especially common after the Civil War as African Americans were targeted for traveling without written proof of employment. In colonial times and throughout history up until fairly recently, charity was the domain of the church and people's families, though some charitable organizations existed within various ethnic groups and cities.
The federal government became heavily involved in charity with the New Deal. Social Security was designed as a seniors' savings plan that would save them from taking jobs in the workhouse. Direct aid to poor people was expanded under Johnson's Great Society programs. This also provided healthcare and affordable housing. Churches and charities are still vital for assisting the poor, but the government has taken on more of a direct role in providing relief. There is still a negative perception in the United States about poverty as some still view it as a moral failing. This is especially common with those in the government who seek to cut programs designed to help the poor.
In colonial times in the United States, poor relief was necessarily local, as the various colonies were independent entities. Charity was based on the English Poor laws, which divided the poor into the deserving and undeserving categories. The deserving poor were the disabled, the widows, the youngest children, the elderly, and people who had been visited with misfortunes they couldn't help. The undeserving poor were alcoholics, criminals, and the able bodied who refused to work. Churches were at the center of charity and decided who deserved help and who didn't.
Much of colonial law about the poor stayed in play until the twentieth century and did not change radically until the Great Depression. Today, we inherit the legacy of the New Deal. Two major changes are that much of poor relief is federal: it runs out of and is funded by the federal government in Washington. This includes programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (popularly known as food stamps), HUD housing, and Medicaid. This is more efficient than patchwork initiatives and transfers wealth from richer states to poorer states. Second, we believe in entitlements rather than certain people "deserving" the right to basic necessities. We believe that every American citizen is entitled to food, clothing and the other basics needed to stay alive and believe all people should be treated with dignity and should not have to beg for help.
That said, a similarity between then and now is the tendency to stigmatize the poor and blame the poor for their poverty. We are also going back to ways of dividing the poor into deserving and undeserving, such as mandatory drug testing for some benefits.
During colonial times, local municipalities cared for the poor in various ways, including the contract system and the auction system. The contract system involved placing the poor with a local farmer or another resident of the municipality who received a sum of money. In another method of poor relief called the auction system, poor people were sent to live with the family who would accept the smallest amount of funds to care for them.
These systems are different from today's relief in that today, private individuals are generally not asked to manage the direct care of the poor (except for foster parents). The direct care for the poor today comes from local and state governments rather than from private individuals. The system of "outdoor care," which existed in colonial times, is more similar to today's methods of delivering help to the poor. In this system, the poor received food and other necessary goods in their own houses (though the poorhouse was a far more common system of providing poor relief in former times).
Today's poverty relief programs try to keep people in their own houses, whenever possible, rather than relocating them. The poorhouses used in the past were often plagued by unsanitary conditions and corruption. Today's systems of poor relief try to keep families together and try to keep families in their communities so that families can benefit from their local social, familial, religious, and other connections.
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/poor-relief-early-amer/
The two methods for helping the poor that have changed since the colonial times are poorhouses and outdoor relief. Poorhouses were used to house those that couldn't work because they were disabled, elderly, or minors without guardians. Nowadays, there are foster homes for minors without parents and nursing homes for the elderly and disabled. The main goal remains the same: providing social welfare. However, unlike poorhouses that were costly to manage because the government was the sole financier, the current system relies on social security—a fund that gets citizen contributions—to run. Outdoor relief was aid given in the form of cash and food to the needy. Nowadays, citizens contribute through various charitable organizations. The major difference with modern outdoor relief is that citizens play a big role in the contributions.
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/poor-relief-early-amer/
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