[Architect]

From Dictionary.com: "Welfare 3a: Financial or other aid provided, especially by the government, to people in need."

What financial or other aid did the government provide prior to AFDC? And why have families fallen apart since 1950? Oh, I know. Fathers suddenly took it into their heads to abandon their children, as they had never done before in history. Or maybe it wasn't fathers. Perhaps it was those "nonsensical realists" - the anarchists?

[VRWC_minion]

Even the bible dealt with widows and orphans. Before major federal and state programs states had orphanges. In fact slavery is a form a welfare.

Bring on all the dictionary definitions you want the need for welfare didn't begin this century or even the millenium.