A is for “Ask for Help”

...as long as you don’t ask for rotisserie chicken...

May 21, 2026

This essay supplements the Kinder Civics coloring book series so as learners color, their parents, guardians and others can reinforce the “Big Lessons” contained on the pages.

The first Big Lesson is “Ask for help.” Unless you' want a rotisserie chicken.

After all, everyone is worthy of support. And while my essay is secular, it doesn’t hurt to acknowledge from the jump that renowned author and journalist Dorothy Day wrote, “The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

Kinder Civic’s first Big Lesson for children is that everyone needs help sometimes, and asking for it is not a weakness. Rather, it is an opportunity to cultivate community and advance humanity. Here’s where the “civics” come in.

For more than 380 years, governments in the United States have provided various means of support to those in need. Public aid for the poor is a vibrant thread of humanity and optimism that was woven into our fabric long before we even became a nation.

I won’t contend that public aid in the U.S. was always motivated by “institutional compassion”.

It wasn’t.

And I’m not going to claim that the relief always met the recipients’ comprehensive needs.

It didn’t.

And I’m certainly not going to claim that the aid was always delivered in a benevolent manner.

It wasn’t. Not even close.

I don’t believe in polishing our history (or current situation) to be something it’s not. Contrary to recent attempts to whitewash American history to make us feel better about ourselves, there is great value in examining our unvarnished history, including the checkered saga of public social welfare in America. While there were probably episodic examples of “do-goodism,” the government provided relief to the poor for mainly pragmatic reasons: to prevent violence, to halt the spread of disease, and to abate the propagation of still more poverty. The aid typically provided only enough to enable survival…and sometimes not even that. And the delivery method was oftentimes…what’s the word? Oh right, cruel.

So, while I am not contending that the United States has a history of providing sufficient philanthropic support to help folks achieve and maintain a healthy and dignified station in life, I am pointing out the fact that even before we were a unified nation, colonial and state governments recognized that folks living in destitution needed some sort of change in circumstances.

Today we can reform the treatment of our most vulnerable by administering public aid in ways that advance the dignity of hurting people in America. We can and should integrate compassion, benevolence, and mercy into our politics.

That begs the question: What are politics?

Political scientist David Easton wrote that politics are “the authoritative allocation of values in society.” His definition resonates with me because I am a big fan of “values-based politics” built on steadfast principles, norms, and standards consistent with kindness, compassion, justice, and the rule of law.

Values-based politics is also consistent with our Framers’ intentions. It is evident from colonial times through the ratification of the U.S. Constitution to modern times, that the government has historically been responsible for enhancing people’s welfare.

How do I know this? I read the U.S. Constitution. I didn’t even have to read the whole thing (although I have, and recommend that all Americans do the same). It’s in the very first sentence of the Preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America [emphasis added].”

But wait, there’s more.

Scroll down to Article I, where our Framers specifically grant the power of the purse (taxing and spending power) to the United States Congress to use for the welfare of the people. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 reads: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States…[emphasis added].”

The italicized clause, aptly called the General Welfare Clause, has been interpreted differently by different people. Even Alexander Hamilton and James Madison disagreed on what it meant. Their disagreement is pretty reasonable since the Constitution is often described as being “cloaked in ambiguity.” If these two heavy hitters - who were “in the room” when it was written - disagree on the meaning of “general welfare,” then I cannot authoritatively state the significance of the clause.

In the absence of a definitive meaning of the words, we can derive some clues from governmental actions…which have supported the poor for the past 387 years.

Various iterations of government in the U.S. have provided “poor relief” since before the U.S. government as we know it even existed. One hundred thirty-seven years before the American Revolution, our government has provided relief to the poor.

In the 17th century colonies, indigent colonists were so numerous that their care was delegated to the government. The tradition of poverty relief on American shores started in 1639, when Massachusetts enacted “poor relief” laws based in large part on Queen Elizabeth’s 1601 English Poor Laws. Virginia followed suit. Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut enacted similar laws. By 1768, all 13 original colonies had passed comparable policies.

Like the English precedent, they all contained the unfortunate distinction between the “worthy” (the disabled, the elderly, the sick, orphaned children, and widows) and “unworthy” poor (“able-bodied” men who did not work). “Worthy” paupers tended to receive “outdoor relief” in their places of residence, consisting of food, clothes, medical support, and/or firewood. It did not cover all of their needs, but on the upside, it delayed some of their deaths. “Unworthy” paupers were given “indoor relief” which amounted to confinement in a house of correction, poorhouse, or workhouse where conditions (e.g. sickness, starvation, abuse, violence, and death) were as bad or worse than in prisons.

Children presented a problem, given that they needed an adult to raise them. Local government officials often auctioned (that’s not an autocorrect error) off poor children, the “winner” of whom would get a small stipend from public funds and, depending on the child’s health and strength, free labor for years to come. Other poor children were assigned to become indentured apprentices. Still others, some as young as five years old, were assigned to a pauper apprenticeship to do labor in exchange for room and board.

The main recipients of “poor relief” tended to be single-mother families, who the state kept together when possible to reduce the need for state-sponsored orphanages. But the “deservability” factor weighed heavily in the eligibility process. Some women’s “worthiness” of aid was determined by officials who scrutinized her housekeeping skills, use of alcohol and tobacco, and even sexual behavior. One slip up could result in family separation and generational poverty.

For centuries, the American poor were not given cash - even for food or clothing - because they were not trusted to use it wisely. This finally changed with the Social Security Act of 1935. The legislation included provisions of cash to needy children lacking parental support, impoverished elderly, and blind individuals. These programs continued largely as originally passed until the Great Society programs of the Lyndon Johnson administration expanded the scope through Social Security Income (SSI) and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) block grant program (replacing AFDC).

Subsequent presidential administrations (most notably Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Trump) cut federal aid dollars, devolved program (and cost) responsibilities to the states, and enacted restrictions emphasizing recipients’ “personal responsibility” (e.g. job training, vocational education, mandatory work, community service, drug testing, felony disqualifications, teen parent rules, lifetime limits, etc.)

Less money and more judgment.

Those trends continue today. As recently as May 2026, the Trump administration reduced public support expenditures (including Medicaid) by several trillion dollars, cut affordable housing funds, and tightened work requirements for food eligibility. The administration eliminated more than $750 billion from food and healthcare aid. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” resulted in millions of Americans losing benefits. Some SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients were forced to work or train for 80 hours a month or lose benefits. Finally, in alignment with the federal Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign, some states are restricting the types of food that SNAP recipients can purchase, banning soda, candy, high-sugar beverages, prepared desserts, and more.

These restrictions harken back to the “deservability” determinations of the 17th century. American elected officials (many of whom are millionaires) still determine what types of food impoverished people and families can purchase. Poor children, this suggests, don’t deserve sweets.

One long-standing and particularly disturbing restriction on SNAP benefits is the ban on purchasing prepared food that is hot at point of purchase (established in the 1970s). This includes soups, sandwiches, pizza (slice or pie), and even rotisserie chickens, which are known to be one of the most affordable and economic ways to feed a family.

The House of Representatives passed (in April 2026) and the Senate is now considering passage of the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act (HRCA). The bill has bipartisan backing in both chambers. Supporters include Senators John Fetterman (D-PA), Senator Jim Justice (R-WV) and Representative Rick Crawford (R-AR). The bill is currently pending in the U.S. Senate, but there is no floor scheduled at this time.

I’ll table the other restrictions for another day and focus my concluding thoughts on the HRCA. I sincerely hope that the Senate puts this to the floor and passes it, formally approving SNAP recipients’ ability to purchase hot, prepared food at point of purchase. The convenience and nutrition factors alone justify its passage. But just as important, I think, is the dignity factor. When people or families are struggling financially, it seems unnecessarily cruel to dictate what they can eat. Hot prepared foods can be time-saving for busy people and families, can be much easier to plate and consume for people with disabilities who have limited abilities to prepare and cook food, and many are calorie-rich and nourishing. In terms of America’s history of conditional “help,” the metaphorical chickens have come home to roost. To encourage the Senate to end centuries of “deservability” requirements, I offer an optimistic reformulation of Marie Antoinette’s notoriously oblivious decree: “Let them eat rotisserie.”