Workfare is an alternative, and controversial, way of providing money to otherwise unemployed or underemployed people, who are applying for social benefits. The term was first introduced by civil rights leader James Charles Evers in 1968; however, it was popularized by Richard Nixon in a televised speech August 1969.[1] An early model of workfare had been pioneered in 1961 by Joseph Mitchell in Newburgh, New York.[2]