Two major Jewish organizations Joined today with national Protestant and Catholic groups in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw state residency requirements for welfare recipients for whom federally-sponsored relief help is sought.
The five organizations filed a Joint brief supporting lower court decisions which invalidated such residency requirements enacted by Connecticut, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. Joining with the American Jewish Congress and the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, were the National Conference of Catholic Charities, the National Council of Churches, and the Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund for Racial Equality, Inc. It was noted that the Young Women’s Christian Association also supported the arguments in the brief. Federal aid is provided under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children law.
The five organizations contended that welfare aid was “so fundamental and of such long standing” as to be regarded as part of the “basic law of the land” incorporated in the “due process concept” and that it would be “inconsistent” with American law to recognized government responsibility to the poor “while denying those who would benefit from it the right to enforce it.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
