Social Insurance and Public Assistance

720 SeriesBf 1–7 Bf SOCIAL INSURANCE AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
POOR RELIEF
Joan Underhill Hannon and Stephen T. Ziliak
TABLE Bf1–7 Poor relief in Philadelphia – recipients, expenditures, and tax levied:
1709–1775
Contributed by Stephen T. Ziliak
Poor relief
Poor tax
Expenditures
levied per per 1,000 Recipients per Expenditures per
Population annum Expenditures population Recipients 1,000 population recipient
Bf1 Bf2 Bf3 Bf4 Bf5 Bf6 Bf7
Pounds
Period Number Pence Pounds per 1,000 Number Per 1,000 Pounds
1709 2,500 1.5 158 59 13 4.8 12.00
1739 9,100 3.0 800 83 80 1 8.3 1 10.00 1
1756–1758 15,600 3.0 1,175 72 110 1 6.7 1 10.90 1
1765 18,100 5.0 2,385 123 310 16.0 7.14
1768–1771 19,700 6.0 3,681 175 590 28.1 6.50
1772–1775 22,300 6.0 3,868 163 720 30.3 5.70
1 Estimate based on the known number of outreliefers plus an estimated 40 to 50
inmates in the small almshouse.
Source
Gary B. Nash, “Poverty and Poor Relief in Pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia,”
William and Mary Quarterly 33 (1976): 3–30. Table 1, p. 9.
Documentation
All values are in Philadelphia currency. The data are derived from numerous
archival sources. For example, the figures for 1768 to 1775 are derived from
the annual reports of the Records of the Contributors of Relief to the Poor,
Treasurer’s Accounts, City Archives, Philadelphia. The figures for 1739, on the
other hand, are found in the Philadelphia Poor Day Book, 1739. “Although
food prices rose steeply in the 1770s, there was general stability in prices and
sterling exchange rates in Philadelphia during the colonial period, so money
values have not been converted to English sterling” (Nash 1976, p. 9).
Series Bf2. The source suggests that the tax was a flat tax on any assessable
property.
TABLE Bf 8–16 Poor relief expenditures in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York: 1700–1775
Contributed by Stephen T. Ziliak
Boston Philadelphia New York
Poor relief Poor relief Poor relief
Average Expenditure Average Expenditure Average Expenditure
annual per 1,000 annual per 1,000 annual per 1,000
Population expenditure population Population expenditure population Population expenditure population
Bf8 Bf9 Bf10 Bf11 Bf12 Bf13 Bf14 Bf15 Bf16
Pounds Pounds Pounds
Pounds sterling per Pounds sterling per Pounds sterling per
Period Number sterling 1,000 Number sterling 1,000 Number sterling 1,000
1700–1710 7,500 173 23 2,450 119 48 4,500 — —
1711–1720 9,830 181 18 3,800 — — 5,900 249 32
1721–1730 11,840 273 23 6,600 — — 7,600 276 25
1731–1740 15,850 498 31 8,800 471 49 10,100 351 21
1741–1750 16,240 806 50 12,000 — — 12,900 389 21
1751–1760 15,660 1,204 77 15,700 1,083 67 13,200 667 39
1761–1770 15,520 1,909 123 22,100 2,842 129 18,100 1,667 92
1771–1775 15,500 2,478 158 27,900 3,785 136 22,600 2,778 123
Source
Gary B. Nash, “Urban Wealth and Poverty in Pre-Revolutionary America,”
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (4) (1976): 545–84. Table 4, p. 557.
Documentation
See the text for Table Bf1–7 for a description of the data source for Philadelphia.
Between 1754 and 1775, the town records of Boston provide, with few
interruptions, an annual report of the treasurer on disbursements to the
Overseers of the Poor. These reports provide direct counts. For the period
1700–1720, Nash “estimated poor relief costs at one-third the town expenses
(given yearly in Boston Town Records), the ratio that prevailed in the five years
between 1727 and 1737 when poor relief expense figures are given” (Nash
1976, p. 556 n. 24).
The figures for New York have been reconstructed from the Minutes and
Accounts of the Church Warden and Vestrymen of the City of New York,
1696–1715, New York Historical Society; and Minutes of the Meetings of the
Justices, Church Wardens, and Vestrymen of the City of New York, 1694–
1747, New York Public Library. The salary of the clergymen for the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, which was included in these expenditures,
has been subtracted from the yearly totals. Nash reports that “the New York