The modifications to ADFC (which was not a very well designed programme in the first place) were not, contrary to what is often assumed, part of Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' agenda but occurred during the Kennedy administration. In any event, while the social impact of those reforms to ADFC were demonstrably negative (even if the extent can be argued), all Western societies saw an increase in single-parent families during the 1970s and 80s, which means that the general pattern cannot be blamed on ADFC, even if we can say that it likely made a bad situation worse.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this, but do things like single mother benefits exist in the UK/most of Western Europe? When were those created? And are parallels to other Great Society programs common?
Yes, but there tend to be different models of welfare. Of course, this is twenty years since I read it and it's only very rough grouping with a lot of overlap.
1: The Liberal or Anglo model, in this model you only help the people who are worst of. The benefit of this model is that it's cheap and only help the worst of people. The problem with the model is that it incentivizes people who are doing badly and have a tough time improving to become even more dysfunctional.
2: Social Democratic or Nordic model, in this model you help vast amount of the population. The benefit of this model is that it doesn't incentivize dysfunctionality. The con is that it's very expensive and have to deal with "free riders"
3: Conservative or continental model, this model is based on mandatory insurances being put on people who work and the insurance covering them, when they hit tough times. The benefit is that it's very cheap and incentivize people to work. The con is that it tends to over the people who are worst of.
Of course, this is only rough descriptions. Most countries which follow the continental model, also have an extra safety net for the worst of. The countries using the Nordic models also tend to have insurance aspects.
But you can see that in case of UK, they have some working-class communities who have the same reputations as some African American communities have for social dysfunctionality, while in most European countries it's mostly on individual level you see this kind of dysfunctionality, while disliked outgroups like some Muslim minorities are seen as having a high degree of internal social coherence (parallel societies).
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