Opinion ID: 110130
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the secretary's appeal

Text: The Secretary advances two arguments in support of the constitutionality of § 407. First, he contends that although § 407 incorporates a gender distinction, it does not discriminate against women as a class. Second, he urges that the distinction is substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental objective: the need to deter real or pretended desertion by the father in order to make his family eligible for AFDC benefits.
The Secretary readily concedes that § 407 entails a gender distinction. Brief for Appellant in No. 78-437, p. 36. He submits, however, that the Act does not award AFDC benefits to a father where it denies them to a mother. Rather, the grant or denial of aid based on the father's unemployment necessarily affects, to an equal degree, one man, one woman, and one or more children. As the Secretary puts it, even if the statute is gender-based, it is not gender-biased. Ibid. We are not persuaded by this analysis. For mothers who are the primary providers for their families, and who are unemployed, § 407 is obviously gender biased, for it deprives them and their families of benefits solely on the basis of their sex. The Secretary's argument, at bottom, turns on the fact that the impact of the gender qualification is felt by family units rather than individuals. But this Court has not hesitated to strike down gender classifications that result in benefits being granted or denied to family units on the basis of the sex of the qualifying parent. See Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973) (military quarters allowances and medical and dental benefits); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636 (1975) (survivor's benefits); Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199 (1977) (survivor's benefits); Califano v. Jablon, 430 U. S. 924 (1977), summarily aff'g 399 F. Supp. 118 (Md. 1975) (spousal benefits). Here, as in those cases, the statute discriminates against one particular category of familythat in which the female spouse is a wage earner. Goldfarb, 430 U. S., at 209 (plurality opinion). The Secretary appears to acknowledge the force of these precedents, but suggests that each involved benefits that either were a form of compensation earned by a woman as a member of the labor force, or were directly related to such compensation. In the present case, in contrast, the benefits are part of a noncontributory welfare program. Thus, the Secretary argues, the gender qualification of § 407 is distinguishable from those contained in the earlier cases, for it does not denigrate the efforts of women who do work and whose earnings contribute significantly to their families' support. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 645. The distinction between employment-related benefits and other forms of government largesse may be relevant to equal protection analysis, for example in determining whether the differential treatment of survivor's benefits denigrates the efforts of the deceased spouse. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 645-647; Goldfarb, 430 U. S., at 206-207 (plurality opinion). This does not mean, however, that the Constitution is indifferent to a statute that conditions the availability of noncontributory welfare benefits on the basis of gender. The Secretary's argument to the contrary in effect invites a return to the discredited view that welfare benefits are a privilege not subject to the guarantee of equal protection. See Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365, 374 (1971). Putting labels aside, the exclusion here is if anything more pernicious than those in Frontiero, Wiesenfeld, and Goldfarb. AFDC-UF benefits are not fringe benefits, nor are they a type of social assistance paid without regard to need. Rather, they are subsistence payments made available as a last resort to families that would otherwise lack basic necessities. The deprivation imposed by § 407, moreover, is not a mere procedural barrier, like the proof-of-dependency requirement in Frontiero and Goldfarb, but is an absolute bar to qualification for aid. We therefore reject the contention that the classification imposed by § 407 does not discriminate on the basis of gender.
The Secretary next argues that the gender distinction imposed by § 407 survives constitutional scrutiny because it is substantially related to achievement of an important governmental objective. Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 279 (1979); Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313, 316-317 (1977); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190. 197 (1976). The Secretary identifies two important objectives served by § 407. First and most obviously, the statute was intended to provide aid for children deprived of basic sustenance because of a parent's unemployment. H. R. Rep. No. 28, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1961). As then HEW Secretary Ribicoff put it in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, there is no justification whatsoever for denying to the child of the unemployed parent the food that you give to the child of the parent who deserts or is absent or dead. Hearings on H. R. 3864 and 3865 before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 102 (1961). The appellant Secretary does not contend, however, that the gender qualification of § 407 serves to achieve this goal. Tr. of Oral Arg. 6, 7-8. Nor could he, since families where the mother is the principal wage earner and is unemployed are often in as much need of AFDC-UF benefits and Medicaid as families where the father is unemployed. Second, the statute was designed to remedy a structural fault in the original AFDC program. Under that program, a family was eligible for benefits if deprived of parental support because of the continued absence from the home . . . of a parent. 42 U. S. C. § 606 (a). In times of economic adversity, this provision was thought to create an incentive for the father to desert, or to pretend to desert, in order to make the family eligible for assistance. Section 407, by providing AFDC benefits to families rendered needy by parental unemployment, was intended to reduce this incentive and thereby promote the goal of family stability. The Secretary submits that reducing the incentive for the father to desert was an important objective of the AFDC-UF program, and he argues that the gender qualification is substantially related to its achievement. We perceive, however, at least two flaws in this argument. Although it is relatively clear that Congress was concerned about the problem of parental desertion, see S. Rep. No. 744. 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 160 (1967); H. R. Rep. No. 28, 87th Cong., 1st Sess.,2 (1961), there is no evidence that the gender distinction was designed to address this problem. See Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 648. Both the original AFDC program, and the temporary versions of the AFDC-UF program enacted in 1961 and 1962, were gender neutral. The gender qualification added to the permanent version of AFDC-UF in 1968 escaped virtually unnoticed in the hearings and floor debates. [5] The only explanation for this addition is contained in the following passage, which appears in nearly identical form in both the House and Senate Reports: This program was originally conceived by Congress as one to provide aid for the children of unemployed fathers. However, some States make families in which the father is working but the mother is unemployed eligible for assistance. The bill would not allow such situations. Under the bill, the program could apply only to the children of unemployed fathers. S. Rep. No. 744, at 160. See also H. R. Rep. No. 554, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 108 (1967). This suggests that the gender qualification was part of the general objective of the 1968 amendments to tighten standards for eligibility and reduce program costs. [6] Congress was concerned that certain States were making AFDC-UF assistance available to families where the mother was out of work, but the father remained fully employed and able to support the family. Apparently, Congress was not similarly concerned about States making benefits available where the father was out of work, but the mother remained fully employed. From all that appears, Congress, with an image of the traditional family in mind, simply assumed that the father would be the family breadwinner, and that the mother's employment role, if any, would be secondary. In short, the available evidence indicates that the gender distinction was inserted to reduce costs and eliminate what was perceived to be a type of superfluous eligibility for AFDC-UF benefits. There is little to suggest that the gender qualification had anything to do with reducing the father's incentive to desert. [7] Even if the actual purpose of the gender qualification was to deal with the problem of paternal desertion, it does not appear that the classification is substantially related to the achievement of that goal. The Secretary argues there is [s]olid statistical evidence that fathers are more susceptible to pressure to desert than mothers, and thus that Congress was justified in excluding families headed by unemployed mothers from the AFDC-UF program. Brief for Appellant in No. 78-437, p. 33. We may assume, for purposes of discussion, that Congress could legitimately view paternal desertion as a problem separate and distinct from maternal desertion. Even so, the gender qualification of § 407 is not substantially related to the stated purpose. There is no evidence, in the legislative history or elsewhere, that a father has less incentive to desert in a family where the mother is the breadwinner and becomes unemployed, than in a family where the father is the breadwinner and becomes unemployed. In either case, the family's need will be equally great, and the father will be equally subject to pressure to leave the home to make the family eligible for benefits. The Secretary urges that Congress could take one firm step toward the goal of eliminating the incentive to desert, quoting Califano v. Jobst, 434 U. S. 47, 57-58 (1977). But Congress may not legislate one step at a time when that step is drawn along the line of gender, and the consequence is to exclude one group of families altogether from badly needed subsistence benefits. Cf. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489 (1955). We conclude that the gender classification of § 407 is not substantially related to the attainment of any important and valid statutory goals. It is, rather, part of the baggage of sexual stereotypes, Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S., at 283, that presumes the father has the primary responsibility to provide a home and its essentials, Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7, 10 (1975), while the mother is the `center of home and family life.' Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522, 534 n. 15 (1975). Legislation that rests on such presumptions, without more, cannot survive scrutiny under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.