Fifty years of service to children and their families.

Aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) began with the Social Security Act, passed 50 years ago to provide what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a “safeguard against misfortunes which cannot be wholly eliminated in this manmade world of ours. ” In creating the program, originally called aid to dependent children, the .Federal Government for the first time accepted responsibility for helping States care for children who had been deprived of support by a parent because of death, disability, or desertion. Most im-