Welfare queen
Encyclopedia
A welfare queen is a pejorative
phrase used in the United States to describe people who are accused of collecting excessive welfare payments through fraud or manipulation. Reporting on welfare fraud began during the early 1960s, appearing in general interest magazines such as Readers Digest. The term entered the American lexicon
during Ronald Reagan's
1976 presidential campaign
when he described a "welfare queen" from Chicago's South Side
.
Since then, it has become a stigmatizing label placed on recidivist
poor mothers, with studies showing that it often carries gendered and racial connotations. Although American women can no longer stay on welfare indefinitely due to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
, the term continues to shape American dialogue on poverty.
goes back to the early-1960s; although the offenders in those stories were typically male or faceless. There were, however, journalistic exposés on what would become known as welfare queens. Readers Digest and Look
magazine published sensational stories about mothers abusing the system. Some of these stories, and some that followed into the 1990s, focused on female welfare recipients engaged in behavior counter-productive to eventual financial independence such as having illegitimate children, using AFDC
money to buy drugs
, or showing little desire to work. These women were understood to be social pariahs, draining society of valuable resources while engaging in self damaging behavior. Despite these early examples, stories about able-bodied
men collecting welfare continued until the 1970s, at which point women became the main focus of welfare fraud
stories.
The term "welfare queen" is most often associated with Ronald Reagan
who brought the idea to a national audience. During his 1976 presidential campaign
, Reagan would tell the story of a woman from Chicago's South Side
who was arrested for welfare fraud
:
Since Reagan never named a particular woman, the description can be viewed as an example of dramatic hyperbole
. Despite claims that the woman never existed, the story seems to have been drawn from newspaper reports at the time. In 1976, the New York Times reported that a woman from Chicago
, Linda Taylor, was charged with using four aliases and of cheating the government out of $8,000. She appeared again in the newspaper while the Illinois Attorney General
continued investigating her case. The woman was ultimately found guilty of "welfare fraud and perjury" in the Circuit Court
of Cook County, Illinois
.
In addition, the Associated Press reported on March 8, 1977 that "Joel Edelman, executive director of the Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid, has said his committee found that from early 1973 until mid-1974, [the woman] 'used 14 aliases to obtain $150,000 for medical assistance, cash assistance and bonus cash food stamps.' Edelman said, 'She went from district to district. She had a collection of wigs and was a master of disguise. She organized people and upwards of 100 aliases were used.'"
Reagan’s use of the term was related to a growing unease among New Right
politicians about the expansion of the welfare apparatus. Touching on the cornerstones of American political philosophy (i.e., individualism
and egalitarianism
), the New Right sought to form a top-down coalition with big business and white working-class voters to undo the popular Great Society
programs of the 1960s.
In response to Reagan's use of the term, Susan Douglas, a professor of communication studies
at the University of Michigan
, writes:
The term "welfare queen" became a catchphrase during anti-welfare dialogue and eventually became a permanent feature of American folklore. Media hype from the 1980s to the 1990s also aided in perpetuating the idea. The term came under criticism for its supposed use as a political tool
and for its derogatory connotations. Criticism focused on the fact that individuals committing welfare fraud were, in reality, a very small percentage of those legitimately receiving welfare. Use of the term was also seen as an attempt to stereotype recipients in order to undermine public support for AFDC.
The welfare queen idea became an integral part of a larger discourse on welfare reform
, especially during the bipartisan effort to reform the welfare system under Bill Clinton
. Anti-welfare advocates ended AFDC
in 1996 and overhauled the system with the introduction of TANF
. Despite the new system’s time-limits, the welfare queen legacy has endured and continues to shape public perception.
From the 1970s onwards, women became the predominant face of poverty.
Franklin Gilliam’s study examined the intersection of people’s attitudes on race, gender, and the media. The experiment showed an 11-minute news clip, with a welfare story embedded at some point in the clip, to two groups of participants. Each welfare clip had a different recipient — one with a white woman and the other with a black woman. The results showed that people were extremely accurate in their recall of the race and gender of the black female welfare recipient, confirming that the gendered and racial narrative had entered common knowledge and that implicit associations were often made.
Welfare:
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
phrase used in the United States to describe people who are accused of collecting excessive welfare payments through fraud or manipulation. Reporting on welfare fraud began during the early 1960s, appearing in general interest magazines such as Readers Digest. The term entered the American lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
during Ronald Reagan's
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
1976 presidential campaign
Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1976
The 1976 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1976 U.S. presidential election...
when he described a "welfare queen" from Chicago's South Side
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
.
Since then, it has become a stigmatizing label placed on recidivist
Recidivism
Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior...
poor mothers, with studies showing that it often carries gendered and racial connotations. Although American women can no longer stay on welfare indefinitely due to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging...
, the term continues to shape American dialogue on poverty.
Origin
The idea of welfare fraudWelfare fraud
Welfare fraud refers to various intentional misuses of state welfare systems by withholding information or giving false or inaccurate information. This may be done in small, uncoordinated efforts, or in larger, organized criminal rings...
goes back to the early-1960s; although the offenders in those stories were typically male or faceless. There were, however, journalistic exposés on what would become known as welfare queens. Readers Digest and Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
magazine published sensational stories about mothers abusing the system. Some of these stories, and some that followed into the 1990s, focused on female welfare recipients engaged in behavior counter-productive to eventual financial independence such as having illegitimate children, using AFDC
Aid to Families with Dependent Children
Aid to Families with Dependent Children was a federal assistance program in effect from 1935 to 1996, which was administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services...
money to buy drugs
Narcotic
The term narcotic originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with any sleep-inducing properties. In the United States of America it has since become associated with opioids, commonly morphine and heroin and their derivatives, such as hydrocodone. The term is, today, imprecisely...
, or showing little desire to work. These women were understood to be social pariahs, draining society of valuable resources while engaging in self damaging behavior. Despite these early examples, stories about able-bodied
Able-bodied
Able-bodied refers, in law, to an individual's physical or mental capacity for gainful employment or military service, and it is in this sense that the term is also used regarding eligibility for payment of child support or alimony....
men collecting welfare continued until the 1970s, at which point women became the main focus of welfare fraud
Welfare fraud
Welfare fraud refers to various intentional misuses of state welfare systems by withholding information or giving false or inaccurate information. This may be done in small, uncoordinated efforts, or in larger, organized criminal rings...
stories.
The term "welfare queen" is most often associated with Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
who brought the idea to a national audience. During his 1976 presidential campaign
Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1976
The 1976 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1976 U.S. presidential election...
, Reagan would tell the story of a woman from Chicago's South Side
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
who was arrested for welfare fraud
Welfare fraud
Welfare fraud refers to various intentional misuses of state welfare systems by withholding information or giving false or inaccurate information. This may be done in small, uncoordinated efforts, or in larger, organized criminal rings...
:
"She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social SecuritySocial Security (United States)In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
on her cards. She's got MedicaidMedicaidMedicaid is the United States health program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and is managed by the states. People served by Medicaid are U.S. citizens or legal permanent...
, getting food stampsFood Stamp ProgramThe United States Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , historically and commonly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal-assistance program that provides assistance to low- and no-income people and families living in the U.S. Though the program is administered by the U.S. Department of...
, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."
Since Reagan never named a particular woman, the description can be viewed as an example of dramatic hyperbole
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
. Despite claims that the woman never existed, the story seems to have been drawn from newspaper reports at the time. In 1976, the New York Times reported that a woman from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Linda Taylor, was charged with using four aliases and of cheating the government out of $8,000. She appeared again in the newspaper while the Illinois Attorney General
Illinois Attorney General
The Illinois Attorney General is the highest legal officer of the state of Illinois in the United States. Originally an appointed office, it is now an office filled by election through universal suffrage...
continued investigating her case. The woman was ultimately found guilty of "welfare fraud and perjury" in the Circuit Court
Circuit court
Circuit court is the name of court systems in several common law jurisdictions.-History:King Henry II instituted the custom of having judges ride around the countryside each year to hear appeals, rather than forcing everyone to bring their appeals to London...
of Cook County, Illinois
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
.
In addition, the Associated Press reported on March 8, 1977 that "Joel Edelman, executive director of the Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid, has said his committee found that from early 1973 until mid-1974, [the woman] 'used 14 aliases to obtain $150,000 for medical assistance, cash assistance and bonus cash food stamps.' Edelman said, 'She went from district to district. She had a collection of wigs and was a master of disguise. She organized people and upwards of 100 aliases were used.'"
Reagan’s use of the term was related to a growing unease among New Right
New Right
New Right is used in several countries as a descriptive term for various policies or groups that are right-wing. It has also been used to describe the emergence of Eastern European parties after the collapse of communism.-Australia:...
politicians about the expansion of the welfare apparatus. Touching on the cornerstones of American political philosophy (i.e., individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
and egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
), the New Right sought to form a top-down coalition with big business and white working-class voters to undo the popular Great Society
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
programs of the 1960s.
In response to Reagan's use of the term, Susan Douglas, a professor of communication studies
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, writes:
"He specialized in the exaggerated, outrageous tale that was almost always unsubstantiated, usually false, yet so sensational that it merited repeated recounting… And because his ‘examples’ of welfare queens drew on existing stereotypes of welfare cheats and resonated with news stories about welfare fraud, they did indeed gain real traction."
The term "welfare queen" became a catchphrase during anti-welfare dialogue and eventually became a permanent feature of American folklore. Media hype from the 1980s to the 1990s also aided in perpetuating the idea. The term came under criticism for its supposed use as a political tool
Opportunism
-General definition:Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term can be applied to individuals, groups,...
and for its derogatory connotations. Criticism focused on the fact that individuals committing welfare fraud were, in reality, a very small percentage of those legitimately receiving welfare. Use of the term was also seen as an attempt to stereotype recipients in order to undermine public support for AFDC.
The welfare queen idea became an integral part of a larger discourse on welfare reform
Welfare reform
Welfare reform refers to the process of reforming the framework of social security and welfare provisions, but what is considered reform is a matter of opinion. The term was used in the United States to support the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act...
, especially during the bipartisan effort to reform the welfare system under Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. Anti-welfare advocates ended AFDC
Aid to Families with Dependent Children
Aid to Families with Dependent Children was a federal assistance program in effect from 1935 to 1996, which was administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services...
in 1996 and overhauled the system with the introduction of TANF
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is one of the United States of America's federal assistance programs. It began on July 2, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children through the...
. Despite the new system’s time-limits, the welfare queen legacy has endured and continues to shape public perception.
Gendered and racial stereotypes
Franklin Gilliam theorized that the welfare queen idea has roots in both race and gender:From the 1970s onwards, women became the predominant face of poverty.
Feminization of poverty
Feminization of poverty describes a phenomenon in which women represent disproportionate percentages of world’s poor. UNIFEM describes it as "the burden of poverty borne by women, especially in developing countries"...
Franklin Gilliam’s study examined the intersection of people’s attitudes on race, gender, and the media. The experiment showed an 11-minute news clip, with a welfare story embedded at some point in the clip, to two groups of participants. Each welfare clip had a different recipient — one with a white woman and the other with a black woman. The results showed that people were extremely accurate in their recall of the race and gender of the black female welfare recipient, confirming that the gendered and racial narrative had entered common knowledge and that implicit associations were often made.
See also
- Feminization of povertyFeminization of povertyFeminization of poverty describes a phenomenon in which women represent disproportionate percentages of world’s poor. UNIFEM describes it as "the burden of poverty borne by women, especially in developing countries"...
- Media hype
- Poverty pimpPoverty pimpPoverty pimp or "professional poverty pimp" is a pejorative label used to convey that an individual or group is benefiting unduly by acting as an intermediary on behalf of the poor, the disadvantaged, or some other "victimized" groups....
- Stereotypes of blacks
Welfare:
- Criticisms of welfareCriticisms of welfareThe notion, and the extent of, the modern welfare state has been criticised on both economic and social grounds, from both the Left and the Right of the political spectrum.- Libertarian & Conservative criticisms :...
- Welfare's effect on povertyWelfare's effect on povertyThe effect of social welfare on poverty is controversial. Since the goal of welfare programs is to reduce poverty, it has been debated, primarily in the United States, whether or not welfare programs achieve this goal....
- Welfare fraudWelfare fraudWelfare fraud refers to various intentional misuses of state welfare systems by withholding information or giving false or inaccurate information. This may be done in small, uncoordinated efforts, or in larger, organized criminal rings...
External links
http://www.stormingcaesarspalace.com Storming Caesar's Palace], 1971 demonstration and community organizing by Las Vegas welfare mothers