Shapiro v. Thompson (1969)

[lazychick17]

Thompson was a pregnant, nineteen-year-old mother of one child who applied for assistance under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in Connecticut after having recently moved there from Massachusetts. Connecticut denied her aid since she did not satisfy the state's one-year residency requirement. This case was decided together with Washington v. Legrant and Reynolds v. Smith. In Washington, three people applied for and were denied AFDC aid on the ground that they had not resided in the District of Columbia for one year immediately preceding the filing of their application In Reynolds, two appellees, Smith and Foster, were denied AFDC aid on the sole ground that they had not been residents of Pennsylvania for at least a year prior to their applications as required by a Pennsylvania Welfare Code.


1.What is the purpose of the one-year residency requirement?
2.If every person in a state is subject to the same requirement, can the equal protection clause be applied in this case?
3.How does the right to travel fit into this case?
4.Is the granting of public assistance (welfare) a state action, or conversely, is the withholding of public assistance a state action?

[jno]

hiya lazychick, this is a UK-based site, so don't be too disappointed if nobody knows all that much about US law, though some Americans do visit the site.

In general, states want to discourage welfare tourism - ie people moving to a state because it has better benefits than another state. Hence residency requirements. Conn probably saw no reason why it should pay its taxpayers' funds over to someone whose needs had arisen in Mass. Doesn't stop her traveling, just means she'd have to lodge her claim in Mass, I would guess.

[dundurn]

On the other hand, don't be surprised if Mass refuses to pay up on the ground she no longer has domicile there! Long and short of it is, it is at least a partial bar on travel even if from a Federal point of view this is to be regretted.

Given the way that budgets are calculated and allocated it is understandable, however, that most States will be in the position of saying they can't be sure of covering the welfare costs of transients solely from State funds.