Aid to Dependent Children in a Postwar Year

Of the children helped by the State-Federal program of aid to dependent children in its early years, the largest single group needed assistance because one or both parents had died. Today the emphasis has shifted in response to changing family composition and family characteristics, as well as the development of other programs to meet the needs of children, and aid to dependent children is becomingprimarily a program for children deprived of support by the incapacity or estrangement of their parents. The following article analyzes these changes and their effect on the program. 1 Data relate to June 1948.