Why Americans Hate Welfare

By Martin Giles


Welfare: defined as "a subset of government assistance programs" (12) that share three characteristics. The first is that benefits are means-tested. (only individuals with incomes below a set level are eligible) Second, benefits are provided in cash or near-cash (i.e. food stamps) form. Thirdly, welfare is "understood to refer to programs that assist the working-age, able-bodied poor. In Why Americans Hate Welfare, Martin Gilens sets this as his definition of welfare. Thorough to the very end of the book, Gilens certainly does more than give his definition of welfare. Gilens takes a look at Americans and their curious dislike of welfare, which sets them apart from almost every other country in the developed world. The explanations that he offers are greatly varied- from media coverage to the fact that America never had a feudal system. His main contention is that, oddly enough, Americans are not opposed to giving money to those who need it. However, "welfare" has become almost a swear word in American society. Gilens recognizes this, and therefore spends most of the book exploring the psychological aspects behind welfare, rather than the program itself.


First, a point Gilens will make repeatedly throughout the book: while Americans might say over and over again that they oppose increasing government spending on welfare programs, in reality, they support the majority of programs defined as "welfare." (It should be noted here that every time that Gilens says that "the American people support..." he is referring to a specific survey. He continually and consistently backs up his points with references to these polls.) In this instance, Gilens notes that the majority of social welfare spending is on education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. In fact, only 17% of government social spending is directed toward means-tested programs that target the poor. (16) And these programs are all supported by the American people. In fact, Americans want the government to increase funding for the elderly, on health care, education, child care, as well as some forms of food aid. Most interesting, perhaps, is that 71% of Americans believe that the government needs to increase spending on programs for "fighting poverty and 59% say that funds need to be increased for "assistance to the poor." Yet, in what seems to be a perfect contradiction, 63% of Americans believe that the government should cut spending for welfare, and 71% say that spending should be cut for people on welfare. (All figures, p. 28) So, why is welfare such an anomaly? Gilens offers several explanations.

The first is the inherent nature of Americans: we are highly individualist people. In fact, Gilens said that 96% of Americans believe that "People should take advantage of every opportunity to improve themselves rather than expect help from the government." We still have notions of the American Dream embedded in our heads- anyone who really wants to make a life for themselves can. And welfare goes against those notions. But again, Gilens shows the contradictory nature of this trend. "The conviction that individuals should support themselves is tempered by the recognition that sometimes they cannot, and in such cases, Americans overwhelmingly believe that the government needs to step in." (p. 31) In fact, 88% of Americans support that claim.

To resolve this difference, Gilens brings up the theory of self-interest, which suggests that "middle-class taxpayers will tend to oppose means-tested welfare programs that benefit only the poor." But again, this theory is disproved, after Gilens shows that a majority of middle-class Americans oppose cutting funds from Medicaid and SSI, both programs designed only to help the poor.(p.44) He further says that even during times of an economic downturn, support remains high for programs designed to help the poor. (p.47) In fact, Gilens only mentions one correlation between self-interest and support for welfare. Middle and upper-class families are much more likely to support cutting welfare, because they are much less likely to ever have been on welfare themselves, or to know someone that has been. Out of poor families- those with incomes less than $10,000- only 30% support cutting welfare benefits. But again, when it comes to other welfare programs, support is universal, no matter what income bracket.

It is only after bringing up (and then rejecting) the ideals of individualism and self-interest that Gilens really gets to his theory, the reasons why "Americans hate welfare." His main contention is that many Americans have preconceived notions about the poor: who they are, how they work, why they are on welfare. The "undeserving poor" is the term Gilens uses for the perception Americans have. Only 31% of Americans believe that people on welfare try to find jobs. Two-thirds believe that most people on welfare are taking advantage of the system, and only one in three believe that most people on welfare are genuinely in need of help. (p. 61) A survey was done in Indiana, where people were only asked to say if they supported or did not support welfare, several participants gave longer answers that Gilens says reflects the thinking that many Americans have about welfare. "Anybody can get a nickel who tries to get a nickel. I know people who can work, but as long as they can get free money and food, what's the use of working?" This is from a thirty-four-year-old man. A "young woman" offered her opinion, "There is too much fraud out there, too many people taking advantage of it who don't need it and too many people who need it who can't get it because the other people out there are using it who don't need it." And, finally, Gilens gets to the point, and says, "It would be hard to exaggerate the level of cynicism toward welfare recipients held by the American public. This perception of welfare recipients' dishonesty and freeloading is at the core of Americans' conviction that welfare spending should be cut." (p.64)

There exists a distinction, Gilens says, between the deserving and undeserving poor, which accounts for Americans desire to help "poor people" but not those on welfare. But then, the issue becomes, just how do Americans determine who is deserving and who is not? John Powell, of the University of Minnesota, sums it up nicely, "A lot of this discussion is racism in drag...When you talk about welfare, vouchers, urban strategies, crime, poverty, you're really talking about race." (p.67) Where once we saw dust-bowl farmers, we now see urban blacks as our perception of poverty. This comes in part because African-Americans make up a disproportionate amount of those living in poverty. Only one out of ten white people are below the official government poverty line, whereas three out of every ten blacks fall below the line. Still, African-Americans make up only 27% of poor people in the United States, contrary to what one poll found most Americans to believe. 55% of people surveyed thought that blacks made up the majority of all poor people. (p.68) Gilens connects this to yet another survey, this time asking people if they thought blacks were "lazy" or "hardworking"- rated on a scale of one to seven. 44% of people placed blacks on the "lazy" end of the scale, and among those, 63% thought welfare should be cut. 20% named blacks as "hard-working", and among those, only 35% thought welfare spending should be cut.

In Gilens' contention, there is an underlying "racialization" of poverty, which is helped along tremendously by the news media, and dating back to the Civil Rights movements of the 1960's. The media focus on The Black Panthers, Malcolm X, as well as the ghetto riots in Los Angeles brought the black urban poor into the social consciousness of America. Television played (and still does play) a crucial part of how the American people view poverty, and if people remember only the pictures and not the story itself, they now have a picture to flash back to when they think "poverty." Gilens went so far as to look at the pictures that went with poverty stories in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. He found that over half (53.2 percent) were pictures of black people. In reality, blacks made up only 29 percent of poor people. (p.113)

And here again, as Gilens finally seems to make his point about Americans negative perceptions of welfare, he backs off. "The stereotype of blacks as lazy has a long history in American culture and is implicated in both media portrayals and public attitudes toward poverty...it is beyond the scope of this book...to distinguish the sources of this stereotype and their changing importance over time." (P.173) It seems to be a vicious circle: the stereotype of blacks as lazy grows out of a belief in the essential fairness of the American economic system, and because blacks remain mired in poverty, they are seen as "lazy." The media then neglect the "deserving poor" in exchange for unsympathetic portrayals on poor blacks. And after 173 pages, Gilens finally tells us why Americans hate welfare: "Only if substantial changes occur in the media's coverage of poverty will we be able to tell with any certainty whether the views held...by Americans will change."

Although his arguments are sound, and meticulously supported, Gilens brings up theory after theory, stopping only long enough to explain it, reject it, and move on. He spends two chapters on individualism and self-interest, which he later says are not substantial reasons that Americans hate welfare. By the time that he gets to his point, the reader is almost worn out. He makes excellent observations, although they feel so dragged out and pounded in, eventually the reader feels like screaming, "I get it, already!"


Unfortunately, Susan L. Thomas of Hollins University, did not agree with me. She called the book "important and frustrating." Important, because "it takes us further in understanding American opposition to welfare than we have been before. But, mystifyingly, her biggest gripe with the book is that it didn't address gender issues. Maybe I missed something, but I personally did not see the place for gender analysis in Giles book- he made his points, and he made them well. There was no need to introduce another factor to his argument.

For the most part, welfare in America has been a disaster.

First of all most of the welfare in America doesn't go to the poor or citizens at all but to big conglomerates and mega corporations in the form of bail outs.

As much as these people pride themselves on "sink or swim" capitalism, they always find a way to bail out these major private corporations like air-lines, Amtrak, and other companies to keep them in business.

Billions of dollars have been given away to private industy to keep them afloat while the citizens get peanuts.


Secondly, for the last 25 years in this country since Ronald Reagan, welfare benefits have steadily been drained out of the inner cities where it's needed the most and given to rural white areas in the Midwest and Appalachian areas where millions of poor whites live.

In parts of Ohio and West Virginia you have entire towns of white people on welfare, entire families growing up.
Yet they are never shown or television or even mentioned.

Whenever they talk about welfare in the America media they almost always show the fattest and darkest skinned Black people....usually women with a lot of children...during the broadcasts.
This is the deceptive way of these devils.
The people they're showing walking up and down the street don't even have to be on welfare, just people working everyday and going to the store. They don't call them welfare recipients....they just show them walking up and down the street in the broadcast so that everytime you here the word "welfare" you think of fat Black folks living off the system instead of the millions of poor whites who are benefitting from it.

I won't even get into the millions of Mexicans both legal AND illegal gettting welfare and free health benefits draining the system.



Third, many of the policies that were on the books for a long time did much to destroy the Black family and prevent people from bettering themselves.

I don't know if it's still the case but in the past a grown man wasn't allowed to living in the same home of a welfare recipient.
Whether it was a husband, boyfriend, or even a grown son...if he was over the age of 18 and a male the family could no longer get welfare whether that man was working or not.

So a lot of families had to choose:

Do we need a man in the house who most likely didn't have a job, and if he had one surely wasn't making enough money to take care of himself let alone us?

Or would it be best for him to be out of the house so that the woman as well as all of the children could get a check a piece as well as other benefits?

So most men ended up being booted out of the house or had to hide thier residence and sneak around...locked out of the system.



And to take the cake, in most cases a woman wasn't allowed to work or go to school while she was on welfare.

So she was trapped in a system with no education or skills as was her children.

Now after generations of this type of negative re-enforcement....Bill Clinton comes along and snatches the legs out from under the system and gives everybody 5 years to get off of welfare and go to work.
And set in a 5 year limit in a failing economy.

This policy primarily affected Black people because as usual white people always found a way to skirt the system.
A lot of Black women were forced out of the system to get trained and skilled to be house-keepers and caretakers in nursing homes....basically as maids and nannies again.



I support a sensible even handed welfare system and safety net for all citizens.

But I think it's the responsibility of the government to make sure the economy is healthy, families are strong, and everyone who wants a good well paying job is able to get one so they won't have to depend on the system.

Xx,

When President Rooservelt(correct me if I'm wrong) interduced Welfare in the 1950's, I don't htink that that his intention was to make leech off the system. He did to to help people until they could get back on their feet.The problem with welfare shouldn't be sorely put of the people who receive welfare, some of the fault should also lie with the workers themselves. They were being too lenient with giving them the aid without checking to see if the money is going to the things they need or if they have a steady job to get off of it.

Welfare shouldn't have had been declared a disaster system if the heads of these departments would have had somestricter stipulations in it. If I was to run the welfare department I would stipulate 1) The person should go out an find a job and they would have proof of employment, how long they have been working out there andif they can afford to maintain what they acquire 2)I would make sure that the money is going into the necessities( e.g. food , clothing, shelter)3) give them at least four months to find a home. If they are able to do this before they years is up I would let them off welfare. There should also be more jobs/job training programs for these people to get off the system. On the contrary, I dodn't see how som people can live off the welfare system. I don't know about other states,but in the state of Georgia,their clients only receive 200 something dollars in benefits, that is not a lot of money. Why would somebody want to live off a low sum of money?( that the people who actually live off the system)