Appellees are New York City residents receiving financial aid under the federally assisted Aid to Families with Dependent Children program or under New York States general Home Relief program who allege that officials administering these programs terminated, or were about to terminate, such aid without prior notice and hearing, thereby denying them due process of law. The District Court held that only a pre-termination evidentiary hearing would satisfy the constitutional command, and rejected the argument of the welfare officials that the combination of the existing post-termination "fair hearing" and informal pre-termination review was sufficient. Held:

1. Welfare benefits are a matter of statutory entitlement for persons qualified to receive them and procedural due process is applicable to their termination. Pp. 261-263.

2. The interest of the eligible recipient in the uninterrupted receipt of public assistance, which provides him with essential food, clothing, housing, and medical care, coupled with the States interest that his payments not be erroneously terminated, clearly outweighs the States competing concern to prevent any increase in its fiscal and administrative burdens. Pp. 264-266.

3. A pre-termination evidentiary hearing is necessary to provide the welfare recipient with procedural due process. Pp. 264, 266-271.

(a) Such hearing need not take the form of a judicial or quasi-judicial trial, but the recipient must be provided with timely and adequate notice detailing the reasons for termination, and an effective opportunity to defend by confronting adverse witnesses and by presenting his own arguments and evidence orally before the decision maker. Pp. 266-270. [397 U.S. 254, 255]

(b) Counsel need not be furnished at the pre-termination hearing, but the recipient must be allowed to retain an attorney if he so desires. P. 270.

(c) The decisionmaker need not file a full opinion or make formal findings of fact or conclusions of law but should state the reasons for his determination and indicate the evidence he relied on. P. 271.

(d) The decisionmaker must be impartial, and although prior involvement in some aspects of a case will not necessarily bar a welfare official from acting as decision maker, he should not have participated in making the determination under review. P. 271.

John J. Loflin, Jr., argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were J. Lee Rankin and Stanley Buchsbaum.

Lee A. Albert argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Robert Borsody, Martin Garbus, and David Diamond.

Briefs of amici curiae were filed by Solicitor General Griswold, Assistant Attorney General Ruckelshaus, and Robert V. Zener for the United States, and by Victor G. Rosenblum and Daniel Wm. Fessler for the National Institute for Education in Law and Poverty.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question for decision is whether a State that terminates public assistance payments to a particular recipient without affording him the opportunity for an evidentiary hearing prior to termination denies the recipient procedural due process in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This action was brought in the District Court for the Southern District of New York by residents of New [397 U.S. 254, 256] York City receiving financial aid under the federally assisted program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) or under New York States general Home Relief program.1 Their complaint alleged that the New York State and New York City officials administering these programs terminated, or were about to terminate, such aid without prior notice and hearing, thereby denying them due process of law.2 At the time [397 U.S. 254, 257] the suits were filed there was no requirement of prior notice or hearing of any kind befo