Wikipedia
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the English Parliament, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state.
Usage examples of "poor relief".
After all, they weren't real savages, not with streets and buildings like these - a touch colourful in the way they disposed of malefactors, no doubt, and no poor relief worth a damn, but no society's perfect.
As superintendent of police in occupied Philadelphia, Galloway became impatient with Howes languor and passivity and undertook himself to organize an intelligence network, a civilian commissary, a new sanitation department and involved himself in such civil functions as the issuance of tavern licenses, curfew regulations, and poor relief.
Openly, we're just another among hundreds of volunteer groups doing poor relief.
They are on poor relief already, and no matter how fast the relief is poured to them, they get poorer all the time.
Consider, in the same way, the problems of education, burial, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy.
It's probably better for the poor relief too, I was born there, and besides.