The alignment of molecular sequence data published by Schmitz and Moritz (1998. Molecular phylogeny of Vespidae (Hymenoptera) and the evolution of sociality in wasps, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 9: 183–191) supported closer phylogenetic relationship of Eumeninae to Polistinae Vespinae than Stenogastrinae, from which they concluded that social behavior has independently evolved twice in the wasp family Vespidae. However, their analyses also showed the Vespidae as paraphyletic in terms of the bee family Apidae. Simultaneous analysis of these molecular data with published morphological and behavioral characters is presented. The resulting cladograms support monophyly of Vespidae, as well as monophyly of social wasps, with the primitively social Stenogastrinae being more closely related to the highly social Polistinae Vespinae than the solitary Eumeninae. A realignment of the sequence data is also presented, which is more parsimonious than that published by Schmitz and Moritz. Analysis of the realigned sequences also supports monophyly of Vespidae, as well as monophyly of social wasps, with the Stenogastrinae being more closely related to Polistinae Vespinae than are Eumeninae.