The outcome of these decisions was both to federalize (and thus liberalize) control of welfare and to align its provisions with recent changes in family law. In the King v. Smith case of 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that Alabama’s substitute father rule violated the terms of the Social Security Act and was out of touch with family law, which no longer sought to punish extramarital relations and no longer recognized any valid status distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. In another decision, Justice Brennan opposed child support enforcement as an invasion of privacy. As a result of these rulings, the number of welfare applicants who refused to cooperate with district attorneys in child support matters rose dramatically.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 225