Runaway Train? The Diffusion of State‐Level Reform in ADC/AFDC Eligibility Requirements, 1950–1967

Displeased with the increasing expenditures on ADC/AFDC and the changing demographic composition of the recipient population, state managers between 1950 and 1967 attempted to restrict the program. One way this was accomplished was through enacting work requirements as a condition of eligibility. Temporal variation in the enactment may be explained through a synthesis of two theoretical traditions on policy development: the intrastate and interstate approaches. The authors use diffusion models to examine how both sets of processes affected the rate of enactment of work requirements. States reformed AFDC programs in response to their own internal problem pressures. But this did not happen in a vacuum; work requirements diffused among states that were culturally and/ or institutionally linked.