Aid to Families with Dependent Children: characteristics of recipients in 1979

In March 1979, 10.4 million persons were receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). Nearly 70 percent of these recipients were children and most of the remainder were mothers. At that time, most AFDC families had only one or two children, were headed by women, and lived in a metropolitan area. Comparison with earlier surveys reveals that the number of children and other recipients per household has been declining in recent years, that the proportion of blacks on the rolls has diminished slightly, and that AFDC parents are younger and better educated than they used to be.