The End to Welfare as We Know It

• In Event: 106 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 16. Public Policy

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the potential social and political motivations of welfare reform using quantitative data from the General Social Survey to gauge public attitudes toward poverty and welfare, as well as historical data from The American Presidency Project to examine presidential rhetoric around poverty and welfare. These data sources provide a symbolic representation of the national consciousness and provide empirical evidence of the trends that were used to influence and justify welfare reform in the United States from the mid-seventies though the mid-nineties. The study demonstrates that over time, public attitudes toward and presidential rhetoric around the family, poverty, and welfare became more punitive. Changing meanings associated with terminology describing poor individuals, non-custodial fathers, and the significance of welfare indicate that presidents, and therefore the national consciousness as presidents at least in part symbolically reflect the sentiments of the nation, took a more callous position toward these groups over time. Public opinion data indicate a similar trend, as individuals became more likely to blame poverty on “loose morals” and relate welfare to an increase in non-marital child births over time. In addition, this study demonstrates the racial and class differences among Americans in relation to the causes of poverty.

Author

• Brittany Battle, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers at New Brunswick