DC Accepted Papers Paper:
“Deconstruction of the Welfare Queen” Recognizing Social Construction and Deservedness in Policy Design
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Tylis Brown Cooper
Doctoral student
University of Baltimore
10 W. Preston Street
LAP building room 116
Baltimore, MD. 21201
410-837-6197
TRACK: Social Equity and Race
Proposal title: “Deconstruction of the welfare queen” Recognizing social construction and deservedness in policy design
Abstract: In April of 2018, the whispers of ‘welfare reform’ rose to an audible level and gained the media’s attention as the current administration reinstated work requirement as an eligibility for SNAP recipients. The Trump administration’s thin definition of ‘reform’ purely measures success by the overall reduction in the number of recipients with inadequate reflection on resources necessary to support those most impacted by deep poverty – poor black mothers. By focusing on work requirement and eliminating state level waivers, this ‘reform’ promises to capitalize on low unemployment rates as a viable means to escape poverty. I will show that the promise of reform is nothing more than recycled responsibility politics rhetoric that should cause public administrators to recoil at the model that runs counter to public administration’s third pillar – social equity.
Our humanity birthed programs commonly referred to as welfare, which close the gap for basic needs such as housing, food and healthcare. These services are at the very core of public administration. George H. Frederick, Alice M. Rivlin, Samuel Krislov, and others emphasize social equity and representativeness, while promoting a new worldview of empathy, humanity and full-citizenship. What is now debatable is who becomes worthy of the empathy and humanity embedded in restorative social services. I will unmask the historical social construction of the welfare queen, unpack the role of public policy and uncover and oversimplification of caseload reduction as the answer to transform the welfare system and address deep poverty. Categorically, demonstrating that social markers such as race, gender and class continue to justify racial anxieties, set harmful public policies, and remove agency from those socially constructed as ‘underclass” by design.
