ABSTRACT
In order to understand the meta history of elite white power as it pertains to the segregated welfare state and America's social welfare system, we have to return to the era after the Civil War, a political landscape that now included freed blacks, veterans, widows, and the start of political movement known as the Progressive Era. The expansion of the white-public welfare state across multiple lines indicates the early limits of privatization and austerity strategies. The combination of black civic inclusion and increased black migration from rural areas to the cities changed the composition of who was perceived to benefit from means-tested programs like Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Black-public social welfare programs are a major obligation of the state that was deemed wasteful, too expensive, and a detriment to the American work ethic by elite white politicians, yet, the market around poverty services emerged as good business for elites.
