Terminology The term "welfare dependency" is itself controversial, often carrying derogatory connotations or insinuations that the recipient is unwilling to work (or un-incentivised). Historian
Michael B. Katz discussed the discourses surrounding poverty in his 1989 book
The Undeserving Poor, where he elaborated upon the distinctions Americans make between so-called "deserving" recipients of aid, such as widows, and "undeserving" ones, like single-parent mothers, with the distinction being that the former have fallen upon hard times through no fault of their own whereas the latter are seen as having chosen to live on the public purse. Drawing this dichotomy diverts attention from the structural factors that cause and entrench poverty, such as economic change. Instead of focusing on how to tackle the root causes of poverty, people focus on attacking the supposed poor character of the recipient. In his 1995 book
The War Against the Poor,
Columbia University sociology professor
Herbert Gans asserted that the label welfare recipient, when used to malign a poor person, transforms the individual's experience of being in poverty into a personal failing while ignoring positive aspects of their character. For example, Gans writes, “That a welfare recipient may be a fine mother becomes irrelevant; the label assumes that she, like all others in her family, is a bad mother, and she is given no chance to prove otherwise.” In this way, structural factors that cause a person to be reliant on benefit payments for the majority of his or her income are in essence ignored because the problem is seen as situated within the person, not society. To describe a person as welfare dependent can therefore be interpreted as
blaming the victim, depending on context. The term "welfare-reliant," as used by Edin and Lein (1996), can describe the same concept.
Welfare, long-term reliance, and policy There is a great deal of overlap between discourses of welfare dependency and the stereotype of the
welfare queen, in that long-term welfare recipients are often seen as draining public resources they have done nothing to earn, as well as stereotyped as doing nothing to improve their situation, choosing to draw benefits when there are alternatives available. This contributes to
stigmatization of welfare recipients. While the stereotype of a long-term welfare recipient involves not wanting to work, in reality a large proportion of welfare recipients are engaged in some form of paid work but still cannot make ends meet. Attention was drawn to the issue of long-term reliance on welfare in the
Moynihan Report. Assistant Secretary of Labor
Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that in the wake of the
1964 Civil Rights Act, urban Black Americans would still suffer disadvantage and remain entrenched in poverty due to the decay of the
family structure. Moynihan wrote, “The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.” The relatively high proportion of Black families headed by single-parent mothers, along with the high proportion of children born out of wedlock, was seen as a pernicious
social problem – one leading to long-term poverty and consequently reliance on welfare benefits for income, as there would be no male breadwinner working while the mother took care of her children. From 1960 to 1975, both the percentage of families headed by single-parent mothers and reliance on welfare payments increased. At the same time, research began indicating that the majority of people living below the poverty line experienced only short spells of poverty, casting doubt on the notion of an entrenched
underclass. For example, a worker who lost his job might be categorized as poor for a few months prior to re-entering full-time employment, and he or she would be much less likely to end up in a situation of long-term poverty than a single-parent mother with little formal education, even if both were considered “poor” for statistical purposes. In 1983, researchers
Mary Jo Bane and
David T. Ellwood used the
Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the duration of spells of poverty (defined as continuous periods spent with income under the poverty line), looking specifically at entry and exit. They found that while three in five people who were just beginning a spell of poverty came out of it within three years, only one-quarter of people who had already been poor for three years were able to exit poverty within the next two. but in the 1980s this emphasis became central to welfare policy. Emphasis turned toward personal responsibility and the attainment of self-sufficiency through work. Conservative views of welfare dependency, coming from the perspective of
classical economics, argued that individual behaviors and the policies that reward them lead to the entrenchment of poverty.
Lawrence M. Mead's 1986 book
Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship argued that American welfare was too permissive, giving out benefit payments without demanding anything from poor people in return, particularly not requiring the recipient to work. Mead viewed this as directly linked to the higher incidence of
social problems among poor Americans, more as a cause than an effect of poverty: :"[F]ederal programs have special difficulties in setting standards for their recipients. They seem to shield their clients from the threats and rewards that stem from private society – particularly the marketplace – while providing few sanctions of their own. The recipients seldom have to work or otherwise function to earn whatever income, service, or benefit a program gives; meager though it may be, they receive it essentially as an entitlement. Their place in American society is defined by their need and weakness, not their competence. This lack of accountability is among the reasons why nonwork, crime, family breakup, and other problems are much commoner among recipients than Americans generally."
Charles Murray argued that American
social policy ignored people's inherent tendency to avoid hard work and be amoral, and that from the
War on Poverty onward the government had given welfare recipients disincentives to work, marry, or have children in wedlock. His 1984 book
Losing Ground was also highly influential in the welfare reforms of the 1990s. In 1983, Bane & Ellwood found that one-third of single-parent mothers exited poverty through work, indicating that it was possible for employment to form a route out of reliance on welfare even for this particular group. Overall, four in five exits from poverty could be explained by an increase in earnings, according to their data. The idea of combining
welfare reform with work programs in order to reduce long-term dependency received bipartisan support during the 1980s, culminating in the signing of the
Family Support Act in 1988. This Act aimed to reduce the number of AFDC recipients, enforce child support payments, and establish a welfare-to-work program. One major component was the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program, which provided remedial education and was specifically targeted to teenage mothers and recipients who had been on welfare for six years or more – those populations considered most likely to be welfare dependent. This was a direct continuation of the line of thinking that had been prevalent in the 1980s, where personal responsibility was emphasized. TANF was administered by individual states, with funding coming from federal block grants. However, resources were not adjusted for
inflation, caseload changes, or state spending changes. Unlike its predecessor AFDC, TANF had as its explicit goal the formation and maintenance of two-parent families and the prevention of out-of-wedlock births, reflecting the discourses that had come to surround long-term welfare receipt. One shortcoming of
workfare-based reform was that it did not take into account the fact that, due to welfare benefits often not paying enough to meet basic needs, a significant proportion of mothers on welfare already worked "off the books" to generate extra income without losing their welfare entitlements. Neither welfare nor work alone could provide enough money for daily expenses; only by combining the two could the recipients provide for themselves and their children. Even though working could make a woman eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, the amount was not enough to make up for the rest of her withdrawn welfare benefits. Work also brought with it related costs, such as transportation and child care. Without fundamental changes in the skill profile of the average single-parent mother on welfare to address structural changes in the economy, or a significant increase in pay for low-skilled work, withdrawing welfare benefits and leaving women with only work income meant that many faced a decline in overall income. Sociologists
Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein interviewed mothers on welfare in Chicago, Charleston, Boston, and San Antonio, and found that while working mothers generally had more income left over after paying rent and food than welfare mothers did, the former were still worse-off financially because of the costs associated with work.
Types of Welfare State Regimes In examining the welfare state,
Gøsta Esping-Andersen identifies three distinct 'regimes' grounded in the legacy of classical political economy, each with unique approaches to welfare provision and societal impact. The
liberal welfare state regime, characterized by minimal state intervention, prioritizes market solutions and individual responsibility, often resulting in a stratified system where benefits are typically means-tested and modest. The
conservative regime, influenced by corporatist and traditional values, offers status-differentiated benefits, preserving existing social hierarchies and often tying individuals' welfare entitlements to their employment history and status. Lastly, the
social democratic regime promotes an extensive redistribution of wealth and universal welfare provisions, aiming to de-commodify social services and ensure broad access regardless of individual market position. This regime type is distinguished by its commitment to equality and comprehensive social protection. Esping-Andersen's analysis highlights the profound influence of political and economic ideologies on the formation of welfare policies, demonstrating how welfare states not only reflect but also reinforce the stratification of society.
Measuring dependency The
United States Department of Health and Human Services defines ten indicators of welfare dependency: ==Risk factors==