The 1960s and 1970s saw the first steps toward the policies we see today in TANF that take away assistance from families where an adult doesn’t meet a work requirement. The entry of more mothers, especially white mothers, into the workforce shifted public expectations about single mothers and work outside the home. Additionally, growing media attention to a “welfare crisis” and claims that AFDC incentivized women not to marry or work pressured federal policymakers to adopt a new approach to single mothers living in poverty.[93] Many began moving away from the idea that AFDC mothers’ primary responsibility should be caring for their children in the home, rather than working.

The majority of recipients who found work took jobs in low-paying sectors such as food service and child care, where Black and Latina mothers already were overly represented.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?