welfare coverage

[Brad De Long]

>In the late 1960s, the national welfare rights movement started out of a
>realization that people -- in urban ghettos -- did not just need
>organizing and community centers, they needed money. They needed clothes
>and food and housing. Working in the Youth centers, these organizers
>began to direct people towards the welfare offices and when folks were
>denied benefits, the organizers had the law on their side because AFDC
>was an entitlement. All that has now changed and I think it is very
>naive to believe otherwise.

But Food Stamps, Medicaid, and the EITC still are entitlements--and they
are big. It seems to me that it might also be somewhat naive to believe
that welfare as we know it has been ended...

Brad DeLong