Our corporations lie and cheat. Our military lies and cheats. Our wealthy lie and cheat. Our banks lie and cheat. Our politicians lie and cheat. Our churches lie and cheat. We are human beings, we lie and cheat. Reagan used this woman to promote the myth of the welfare queen. He lied and he cheated just as Linda Taylor did. Time to stop disrespecting the poor, both employed and unemployed. The majority have little choice in their situation.
29
I've no doubt that 'welfare queens' still exist - probably too many, but not enough for me to question the basic idea that we should, while we can, support those less fortunate. On the same day we see a NYT story that a man running a "small nonprofit [!] that specialized in [NYC taxicab] medallion loans" made $30 million during a ten or so year period including $4.8 million during 2014 when the medallion bubble burst.
I'll not lose sleep over the occasional Ms Taylor who abuses the system. I am sure that there are far more who, for one reason or another, do not manage to claim what they are in fact entitled to. But the extent of corporate, and BTW entirely legal, tax avoidance and loan mongering dwarfs any abuse of welfare. We seem to celebrate it.
25
As always the facts and truth of the matter never mattered. Ronald Reagan who had a lifetime history of self-aggrandizing lies (sound familiar?) seized upon this obscure issue, radicalized it and rode it into the Oval Office. The amount of money involved would not fund a full second of expenses in our War Department.
15
Linda Taylor's life is an example of fact being stranger than fiction. While it is the story of a marginalized person who turned to a life of grifting, it is also a modern definition of picaresque.
7
I picture this young child sitting alone outside in a car while her family is inside having a feast, all because of her mixed race. Probably the sort of people Trump appeals to. Trump has done more to amplify the racial divide in this country that any president, at least in recent memory. This country needs to somehow get past its racism.
19
And what about wealthy government officials who siphon public funds for private use? how come no one shuts down THOSE channels? A few bad apples do not condemn a system that benefits those it was designed to serve. Abuse just shows us the holes that need patching. We need oversight to monitor the flow of our hard earned taxpayer dollars so our systems perform accordingly, and to ensure that our tax dollars are not wasted. Don't be fooled by politicians who draw convenient conclusions to fuel their campaigns.
21
In the mid 80's while the myth of the "welfare queen" and Ronald Reagan were at their height, Ivan Boesky cheated people out of hundreds of millions of dollars in stock fraud. Can somebody point me to any myth applicable to greedy white people that resulted from this scandal? I am particularly interested in any occasion where RR condemned this behavior in equally strong terms.
41
@Manuel:"In the mid 80's while the myth of the 'welfare queen' "
Sorry Manual, but such persons did exist.
When living on the near east side of Detroit, where I resided for over 30 years I had a welfare prince living next to me.
At the beginning of the month he would ask if I wanted to buy some of his food stamps.
Near the end of the month he would as for a handout because his "mother was hungry".
In the meantime the partying continue with it reaching a crescendo on the front porch during summer months.
Ahh the sounds and sights of the summer in the city.
5
In a way, this text resembles a Trump biography.
17
That she became sociopathic
is no surprise given her background. So many criminals are celebrated in this country...Bonnie and Clyde, Donald Trump, Jessie James...but here we have a woman of mixed white and African American race and that changes the perception. No celebrating HER lack of conscience to get away with cunning crimes and greed. That Reagan used her as a way to stoke racial stereotypes and hatred is also no surprise given the rights' habit of stoking racism to gain votes.
What is surprising to me is how the insidious 'welfare queen' myth persists, not only stoking racist beliefs but also stereotypes about people of any given race who live in poverty. And how the nasty attitude has grown and metastasized like a cancer. This toxic lack of compassion that is the ugly underbelly of society, this ugliness and racism helped create Taylor's sociopathic personality and criminality.
22
A welfare caseworker for years in Atlanta I found that this world was multifaceted as are all worlds. There is no real stereotype. There are those that have the self reliance to step up and transition, those that wallow in drugs and use the system to sustain their habit, those that create a workable poor but decent way of life and many other “types” of individuals.
A possible truism is that living the life of victim without accountability is not ok. It seems to not work out well for those who live it and those who condone it. Unfortunately programs of assistance tend to become stagnant pools for many who choose to believe they are “there” because of this or that and “there” isn’t something they are proud of. The Shame and blame go hand in hand.
This lady apparently used her questionable race liability to point a middle finger at the world and criminally manipulate. The article points out that It didn’t work out so well. Good journalism here in that normally there is no black or white, just another layer of truth.
12
This probably one of the most persistence stereotypes of my lifetime. The presumption that black people are gaming the system to the disadvantage of whites.
Quote from J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy"
“To many analysts, terms like ‘welfare queen’ conjure unfair images of the lazy black mom living on the dole. Readers of this book will realize that there is little relationship between that specter and my argument: I have known many welfare queens; some were my neighbors, and all were white.”
22
“her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.”
...or $650,000 in today's dollars.
Funny how we never get to label those stealing billions of dollars with insidious labels when they are the greatest of thieves. If you're white you may get a slap on the wrist, a fine that is a small percentage of the ill gotten gains, a small stretch in a club fed prison or even get to be elected president of the United States.
22
Thank you for the background.
While it explains and fills out the picture of the person, it also fills out the picture of a situation and helps paint "Sir Ronald" in his chosen republican role of a racist taking advantage of others' situations.
12
'When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.' It's interesting that two movies, both westerns, come to mind in separating the fact from fiction in this story. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Unforgiven. Of course, right wing extremists realized the opportunity and have used Taylor's story to create a bumper sticker for their draconian War on the Poor, just as they used Wille Horton to create fear of African American men.
5
Wow! This is good journalism. This is why I don't hesitate to pay my monthly dues to the NYT.
8
Just more proof that this country was always a terrible place to live for most of its citizens. Some freedom. Freedom to get pilloried by "the man"
6
I went to a store last year where baby formula is kept locked so it won’t be stolen. There is so much scamming in the United States, so many types of people and businesses that are shady, from the lowly pickpocket to insurance fraud to crooked politicians who have their hand out before they will consider anything (think Donald Trump and the Washington DC Trump Hotel). And a lot of these bad actors are white. Yet people of other races are most often called out or made examples when something bad happens. Reagan wasn’t honest either; big example was Iran Contra. He should have been impeached for that alone.
17
Contrast this story of desperation (and fraud) with the episode of unrepentant shape-shifting Anna Sorokin aka a German heiress? Coming-to-America with intent to cheat. She will serve- perhaps a few years but will not demonize every European immigrant from here-on-in: What a difference *place of origin* makes.
14
There will always be fraud in any government program. It should not be about race or religion but greedy people.
7
"It doesn’t excuse her crimes to acknowledge that she was also a victim, and she was victimized because of her race."
Actually, maybe it does. What a sad story Martha Mooney aka Linda Taylor was never given a chance. She was deprived, not only of normal family ties of kinship, but also denied an education. What a lonely and miserable person she must have been and what a terrible life she led.
8
When a lie or deception is used as fact, and then repeated, even when proven false. There is a word for it.
Propaganda.
It works far better than the truth in convincing ignorant people of whatever you want.
11
One simple solution to those exploiting our oh-so-generous safety nets: tie requirements for food benefits to tax deduction rules - you know, if my banker or lawyer isn't allowed to expense it as a write-off, then you lazy welfare folks trying to feed the children we required you to carry also can't use my tax dollars for something so egregious. Oh wait...
5
As an aside; the research for this article is so comprehensive .
The reporter unraveled a mystery that needed unraveling.
Thank you
11
Its just a fact; some people do not and never will have the wherewithal to lead productive lives, and unfortunately they have babies....
Should they be left to starve and beg in the streets?
There would be large gangs of wandering youth like in South America, India etc? We would have to live behind walls and send our children to school with bodyguards against the constant threat of kidnappers etc.
Is there somewhere,some country that has successfully dealt with “ the less ambitious “?
Am not a bleeding heart liberal just realistic. Its not because everyone ideally should pull their own weight that it going to happen by magic.
Seriously, what to do that would actually deal with this multi-factorial issue?
7
@Marie - The good people of Alabama, Georgia and Missouri have come up with a novel response to the problem of poor women with unwanted babies: force them to have more.
12
I too was an an immigrant now a US citizen whose family moved to US to make it to the land of opportunity and remembering my father’s philosophy that if you work hard and get a solid education in America the chances of succeeding is greater. Both of my parents are now gone and the lessons I learned from them gave me the the life I am now. I have no regrets that I never have to be a part of the government welfare system.
5
I remember reading about Taylor in Jet Magazine as a teen. Thanks for providing substance to this woman’s complex and difficult wife.
I struggle with the statement that Taylor was “victimized because of her race.” Taylor was victimized because of her mixed raced identity but she was neither black or white. Taylor was biracial.
14
@Stephen Williams "she was neither black or white. Taylor was biracial" Hairsplitting methinks. She wasn't white - that's what mattered.
4
This is a really good piece. Not for the stuff about Reagan, although that's the hook. We didn't need to know anything about Taylor to know at the time that he was stoking awful racial stereotypes. What makes Levin's a good piece is the reporting on the human story of Taylor's life and her family. Thanks for running it.
13
Today we might look at her life and deeds through the lens of Adverse Childhood Experiences, of which she had plenty, to understand and find a way to treat her.
4
So a lady scammed the welfare system for 9K. And was caught. Because she was female and bi-racial, her sins were greatly magnified.
How much has Donald Trump scammed and cheated the US Treasury ? (no other POTUS has ever refused to produce tax returns)
Ronald Reagan laid the foundation for Donald Trump.
Except Trumps' cheating has been normalized, and Reagan's dog whistle racism is now an open rant.
So much progress.
So much winning.
36
Proof that environment, not just genetics, plays a role in crafting who we become. Though thousands, perhaps millions, of other women have suffered an equal trial of conscience and held their heads high. The "Welfare Queen" myth is still around. Republicans believe there are tens of thousands of women (read: black women) who are bilking the Welfare system to live a luxurious life. Just like the refrain heard from all Republicans "I have a friend in Canada who tells me the healthcare system up there is terrible". Every Republican in America has a "friend" in Canada. What every Republican in America doesn't have is an ounce of objective reasoning.
19
She walked the fine lines that continue to gird not only the black and white infrastructure, built into the US, turning an abused, neglected, intelligent kid into an anti-social (yet, highly social) just a survivor. And, thus, as villain and villainous, she betrayed the racist American Truth, that still exists--that the Dream where hate and racism and poverty exist, cannot arrive without accepting that it is a Nightmare for so many more. The law is pernicious in this way, she really was not a good person, nor bad, because she was never treated as a person, by anyone--there is truly sadness in this story--it was just amplified by the greedy (white and black and brown) people to burn down a cause (welfare, equal opportunity, mental health) to lift people, like her, up--to give her a fighting chance, to lift her up, to define herself, not be defined by others. She never got the chance to escape what others defined her as, no matter where she ran, even with makeup. This truly is a sad story, and criticism of the period that she grew up in, and that many, many of us still living.
6
"Linda Taylor was inarguably a villain.... It doesn’t excuse her crimes to acknowledge that she was also a victim, and she was victimized because of her race. It’s impossible to understand her life without understanding where she came from, a place and time where the line between black and white could not be smudged."
I find it interesting that the takeaway (as I read it) of the 2013 Slate article by the same author, which goes into much greater detail about Taylor's crimes or suspected crimes, is rather different:
"If Linda Taylor had been seen as a suspect rather than a scapegoat, lives may have been saved.... Linda Taylor’s story shows that there are real costs associated with ... a moral climate in which stealing welfare money takes precedence over kidnapping and homicide."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html
Why the difference in emphasis?
9
Wow! Thank you for sharing that link. Yes, a very different take on this woman. The NYT article gives a somewhat sympathetic take while the Slate article is raw and riveting. The takeaway from both articles is that she was propped up as a "welfare queen" for political purposes. Unfortunately, her life actions were much more complex than that moniker.
3
Richard Nixon invited the great Johnny Cash to sing at the White House. Before he went on stage President Nixon asked him to sing " Welfare Cadillac". To Cashs credit he didn't sing the song. His meaning to the song was that of a man who had nothing , was on welfare but had the dream of a Cadillac. President Nixons thought was a man who cheated the welfare system to get a Cadillac. This type of thing has been going on before Linda Taylor. Still does.
18
There's a movie in here for sure. Fascinating reporting. Well done. It also reminded me of how evil Reagan was, a true race baiter.
21
This poor woman never had a chance to make something of herself: no affection as a child, no education, constantly being made aware by her "family" that she was an unwanted aberration. How could she be expected to become an adult who could function in society and be a loving person? I'm all for people being held accountable for their actions, but to quote Shakespeare (?) "This is surely one who was more sinned against than sinning."
215
Far more interesting are the biographies of those who had every reason to follow a path of bitterness and resentment, but instead chose a path of responsibility and truth. We all have a choice. Thankful every day that my Mother made the right choice despite her horrific circumstances.
21
@JG Easier said than done. We do not choose who we are born to. I believe that our personality, more often than not is shaped by our circumstances, at a fairly early age, an age when one does not have the mental strength or wide worldview and experience to help us see the error of our ways! I would think that is why we celebrate a person who made it , coming from such circumstances! One is more easily able to understand one's egregious action if that person hails from a disadvantaged background such as abuse or abandonment. As virtuous as it sounds, the phrase 'we all have choices' is simply something that helps one justify and rationalize mean spirited beliefs and policies! Choice really is not always that or there for all. I would think that is why we hail as heroes and admire a person who overcomes unfathomable hardship to make something of himself or herself. If not, he or she would be just like anyone else who is successful not hailed as hero or role model! So please do not make it sound like if only you made this choice, you would not be treated this way! People who think that way and believe there is nothing between black and white are the Reagans of this world who make policies that leave so many behind!
36
It’s not a myth, it’s a generational lifestyle that needs to be condemned....l
7
It was during Ronald Reagan's time in office that funds for
the mental ill were slashed. Those living on the streets today
make up a large number who were thrown out on the street.
A sad affair. Couldn't stand Reagan. He was once making a speech and referred to a black man buying a steak with welfare money, as if it were a crime to enjoy steak. Horrible!
12
If you have little to work with in making your way in life, you will improvise.
14
Reagan needed to create a "bad guy" that he would fight in order to protect the voters. He was great at spinning narratives to stir his base. Besides the poor, he victimized gay citizens and thwarted efforts to fight aids which allowed the disease to flourish. Further, by playing his race card, he was able to build the Republican south which inherited their voters from the old racists Southern Democrats who scurried away from the Democrats after LBJ "betrayed" them and passed civil rights legislation. After Reagan, Poppy bush allowed Lee Atwater to run wild which produced the Willie Horton ad which intended to energize the racist part of the republican base. Today we have Trump with all the racial and ethnic nonsense that undermines our Republic. The Jim Crow mentality lives in the hearts of too many citizens.
29
@Peter
Yes, and the Grifter is continuing the demonization of “them”.
5
Every state has had welfare queen tropes over the ages of all colors and origins and there are imposters and charlatans in every town in America. One got to the White House! I see no point in this article at all other than not to believe Republican Presidents.
11
I agree, the crimes Linda Taylor committed were egregious, but humans are naturally flawed and will always migrate towards deceit at every turn.
Before we start casting stones, can you say: Derivatives? Iraq? Savings and Loan? Enron?
Let us not forget that the MOST EGREGIOUS crimes come out of Corporate Boardrooms and Oval Offices.
22
unfortunate timing, she could have worked for big pharma, a defense contractor, or just about any trump republican.
26
Interesting how things work... Can't help but be moved to lay this American's story next to Donald Trump's, the former burdened by a number of substantial disadvantages, the latter buoyed by a number of substantial advantages. It's easy to see why the Welfare Queen was moved to use the system, the same system that created her, so to speak. And at the same time, it's easy to understand why the President - and his father - has used the system. It has created, sustained, and rescued the wealth that has created him. This lady would have been admired, respected, and maybe made President if she had simply been greedier and had set her sights on larger sums of money to swindle from the system. At a minimum, she would have been held up as a good businessman, a label that apparently provides a pass for a plethora of sins.
11
Reaching back to 1974 and the Reagan years to make a point today?
Yes, Linda Taylor was an inappropriate caricature.
But, citizens have every right to still examine -- and criticize or defend -- welfare (in all of its forms).
9
Here is a case where something really WAS stripped from another human. Their very identity and family AND IT WAS LEGAL.
Very little reflection on what this says about our country and that it might be a cautionary tale.
Consider the “tax” she personally paid for the theft of her family of origin and the making of her very body “criminal.” OUR society engaged in the basest of sociopathy for generations. It’s so clever to make the heinous things you want to do to others LEGAL!
Many of you, and if you were born in this country,YOUR PARENTS paid for these unjust laws. Where are your calls that those who made these laws be called to account? Why not demand to know the cost in human lives that these laws exacted? Not to mention the expense of enforcement. Those budget items would have paid for a lot of lobsters.
Frequently the very people who voted for the unjust policies are also happy to support policies to deny “worth less” people living wages, civil rights and access to opportunities. So much anger, distrust and resentment of the poor while actively supporting the policies that ensure that MORE money is spent on policing and enforcement on those in poverty, than what just investing in the people would cost. In 2001 during 9/11 we had 5,000 border patrol. Now we have more than 19,000. This is about being mean and NOT about saving money or protecting us.
12
I was once a contract administrator for the Tenn Valley Authority. I was on the business and acquisition side of construction, equipment or services(MBA). When we bid projects, we had design engineers who wrote specifications, evaluated bids, job inspectors with engineering/ construction contractors monitoring onsite projects. If an organization expects to do things right, administration of funds, government or private must have follow through administration/implementation. Of course ,conservatives love to revel how government can't do anything right(they want everything for themselves). No wonder, when budgets are decided by 435 lawyers with little knowledge of how to ensure money is effectively spent, nor expertise in the area budgeted. Horsetrading favorite budget items is no way to run anything. What we have is a government of 18th, 19th Century and prior that is sacred(God, freedom--its all about the labels), with a few bells and whistles subject to biennial auction.
5
I know a man, a farmer whose net worth is well north of $3M and could easily be double that, who works hard and has all his life. He delivers bales of straw to farm stores in the suburban communities that rim a major Texas city. These stores give him an "employee discount" when he purchases plants for his personal garden, and they take his word for how many plants he has loaded onto the back of his truck. While his math is perfect on the number of bales of straw he sells them, his counting ability is a bit wobbly when buying. So, two dozen is close to 30, isn't it?
Cheating is cheating, isn't it?
10
“There is no evidence that people who get food stamps eat a disproportionate amount of lobster.“
What an inappropriate bit of snark. The foodstuffs that were allowed under the food stamp program, and are still allowed under EBT, are absurd. A person on assistance can still blow that public money on soda and junk food, or lobster and filet mignon. That is the plain truth, and it’s inexcusable.
For many years I lived in poor neighborhoods — near
housing — where I witnessed way too much welfare and food stamp fraud. Back then the welfare system was such that once a teenager had a child she was set for benefits and housing for years, and I encountered these girls and their babies every day. These young women had no plans for the future,
beyond having more babies and taking benefits. I have a vivid
memory of standing in line at the supermarket, behind one such
mom. She was draped in gold jewelry, wearing an expensive leather jacket, carrying a designer handbag, her hands
manicured with long acrylic nails. Her hair done. Her makeup
perfect. Her baby was in the grocery cart, wearing dirty clothes,
underdressed for the cold weather. The mother placed a lot of expensive treats for adults on the counter — I remember a luxury ice cream brand, in particular — and a couple small things that were obviously for the baby. Cereal, a single piece of fruit. She present food stamps to pay. The cashier told her she was short. Mom removed everything for the baby, her meal ticket.
9
Because if you are poor and need any type of help you should NEVER have a fun day or a day of respite and abundance. Humans never need to feel valued and as though they are worthy of joy and investment.
SNAP laws are very specific. That you can’t be on them for more than 3 months in 3 years UNLESS you work 20 hours a week. TANF is even more restrictive. So are housing vouchers.
The taking of this woman’s life (and it was a “taking’) was legal. To make her very body criminal. That was done on OUR money too, yet too many people’s “moral” concern is to insist the humans under the yolk of such unjust policies live meagerly and know at all times that they are worth no more than the barest of subsistence to their their neighbors and community members.
7
It’s funny or sad you bring up this memory. If you’ve lived in poor neighborhoods as you say. You probably witnessed thousands using food stamps properly. However, the memory you choose to tell us is one filled with collections of negative stereotypes. Some folks will always make poor choices but it shouldn’t diminish the law abiding citizens. The images you remember tell us more about your character then the point you are trying to make.
25
Reflect on the history of our country. What has been deemed LEGAL or THE LAW? What is JUST? Look at the words being used on this thread. SHE is considered a CRIMINAL. But very few here are calling the LAWS under which she was forced to live her life CRIMINAL. There is no call for those who degraded her through the imposition of unjust laws be called to account. She had no value to her community so she behaved as though she had no value. This US society and their laws shaped her. if we are to hold her culpable, should we not use the same unforgiving language to those who called her a “crime” for being born at all? This is the inheritance of white supremacy and unjust laws. Why would you ever respect the laws of a country that decreed your very existence “criminal?”
I was placed in the foster care system in 1962 because I came out darker than my white grandmother wanted. I spent years trying to kill myself.
I’ve had to fight hard for my dignity, sanity and place. Isn’t it odd how so many can read this story and not feel empathy for her but not mind at all when fully respected and resourced white men make mistakes? Why are they often deemed worthy of a second chance or a future?
21
This poor woman's sufferings may indeed have been made into a myth, but I don't think the public's abuse of social services has been all that mythical. Nobody called Bill Clinton a racist when he signed on to Gingrich's Contract for America and promised to reign in non-working able-bodies welfare recipients. I know whereof I speak because I was one of those applying for easy money. Back in the 70s tuition was free out in California, so, with some welfare, one could get through college almost entirely on the public tit. Food stamps were almost automatic. There were no loans, just state and federal grants to cover fees. UC was about $1000 per year, plus books. We bought those used. It was a easy life and we shouldn't pretend it wasn't. Kids today have it tough. UC today is about $25,000 plus all the rest brings a year of college out of reach for many, but not in my day. There were still loads of hippies living in the Bay Area, rents were cheap. I paid $400 per month for an apartment that today might be over $3000. I'm not saying this woman didn't deserve what she got. I have no idea. Money flowed freely. Reagan was right to ask questions and I don't think it was racial. He was angry at the anti-war movement at Berkeley and wanted people off the streets. He was swinging wildly and, no doubt, someone cried welfare. That era is now over. The same percent of people might be on welfare but clearly it is no longer an easy life.
7
Think deeply about the stories you hear about people who are on disability and “gaming” the system. Why are so many here willing to be accomplices?
I recently heard of a county that conducted listening sessions and within three weeks the people in poverty found that their food stamp forms had been updated. The listening sessions had uncovered that at the end of the month when money and food stamps ran out, that some people sold blood to survive. So to “prevent fraud” all food stamp recipients were required under penalty of felony to say if they sold their blood to survive through the month. The county wasn’t interested in helping their most impoverished residents. Instead it weaponized their act of concern to penalize them for surviving.
Stand in any modern grocery store line and I defy you to tell me exactly what card the person in line in front of you is using. And then you just happen to be fast enough that you are also in the parking lot to see them get into their Lexus?
The amount of fraud being conducted at this the low of the pay scale probably isn’t even fully worth the cost of enforcement. For instance, so many support drug testing for the poor when there is evidence that the poor don’t use any more drugs than the general population. It’s penny wise and pound foolish, mean spirited public policies that don’t actually save money. But it must feel really good for some to over-monitor and treat as suspect all poor people in need of assistance.
16
When Reagan announced his candidacy for the Presidency at Philadelphia, MS, he was continuing the GOP "Southern Strategy" created by Lee Atwater for Nixon with a lot of help from George Bush, Sr. who pulled TX into the Nixon camp by recruiting the John Birch Society to support the G.O.P. Trump is the latest product of their political strategy and Reagan was not the first.
16
Reagan's hammering on the "welfare queen" stereotype was the far-right's propaganda of the day to promote social division along both racial and economic lines. The intent was no different then than it is today when libertarians and right-wingers like Mitt Romney speak of "makers and takers," that is, those who pay taxes and those on whom tax money is spent.
In libertarians' view, the former, a minority who happen to be almost entirely white and rich, are to have their "freedom" ensured by legal, political, and economic systems that protect and perpetuate their interests (i.e., keeping property rights paramount) and a non-existent or at least absolutely minimal regulatory environment. The latter are everyone else, whose rights, if they have any at all, don't matter and on whom the notion of spending a dime of public money for public services of any sort (health, education, etc.) is anathema. As one conservative put it in the 1970s sometime, there are "those who ride and those who are the donkeys to be ridden."
This attitude can be traced all the way back to John Calhoun in the 1820s and the determination by those profiting from the slave-based economy to maintain that status quo. The ideology has undergone some modernization, of course, but its central drive, which we're clearly seeing today thanks in large measure to decades of Koch money, is the same: to establish a democracy-proof, minority-rule oligarchy.
Read _Democracy In Chains_, by Nancy MacLean.
13
Welfare Queen as an individual is less dangerous than Ted Bundy, less problematic than thousands of anecdotes one could make of a person.
But let's turn this notion all around that African-Americans in general have some how pilfered the taxes of the United States.
Far from it.
In a capitalist economy, money makes money at compounded rates tax-free while labor is taxed at the source.
Those generations of Africans brought to this country in chains weren't even paid or taxed, and that money is due at compounded interest.
Justice will not prevail until the check written by the United States of America for 40-acres and a mule for every slave freed is paid.
There are many ideas for how this could be done.
For starters, the size of the sovereign wealth fund created to pay for slavery decedents must be equal to the approximate present value of that legal formula.
Rather than paying money out presently for generations 10 times removed, the sovereign wealth fund must be available as capital to fund eduction, vocation, and entrepreneurial ventures for generations to come.
Only by satisfying the debt unpaid by this nation for the sin of slavery will the country's correction begin.
The healing must start by redress, and be proportionate to the hill one must climb to level the field to every sister and brother not so situated.
5
There was always a bigger story with her, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what Reagan was doing for what it was, overt racism and stereotyping. I know, I grew up in a mixed race family in the 1960s. I was born in 1961, my father and mother both were white, my father being in the Army, we moved to Germany when I was a baby, it was there that he abandoned me and my 3 siblings, and there where the Army dishonorably discharged him, his commanding officer said he had the morals of a pig, must have been true, I saw him twice in my life.
The man my mother married, was a black WWII decorated veteran, who went off to fight for a country that treated him as a second class citizen, even after he returned after three years of war, even after he survived Pearl Harbor, he came back to the same racism he had left. All through the 1960s, and into the 1970s, I lived the hatred, and bigotry, and while my step dad never spoke of what it was like growing up in the 1930s Philadelphia, I had certainly seen enough of it perpetrated for no reason other than, because they could. My step father always said, it’s better today than it was.
When I was 12 I was spit on by white kid that was in my older brothers high school graduation class, because of my step dads skin color. That incessant brought home how degrading racism is. My step dad, feeling that the older kid was of age, made sure his teeth were in his hand he woke up. His dad, thanked my step dad, for teaching his son a lesson.
19
We must always remember that Reagan was not taking issue with the “Welfare Queen”, but was instead slamming his real target, the social safety net and entitlement stats. In reality, Reagan was delighted that someone as unlawful as the “Welfare Queen” existed, so that he could use her as a poster child for tearing down the entitlement/welfare state, which was Reagan’s whole reason for being in politics to begin with. Regan believed entitlements and welfare lead to slough and unlawful behavior, and therefore, inherently morally wrong. Reagan absolutely needed a “Welfare Queen” in order to be politically successful.
Regan could not have ever become Reagan without the “Welfare Queen.”
9
A little more Republican myth busting when it comes to Ronald Reagan:
Reagan increased the number of abortions in America by the millions! Check out the bill he singed into law:
In 1967 while governor of the State of California "Reagan signed into law the Therapeutic Abortion Act in an effort to reduce the number of 'back room abortions' performed in California. As a result, approximately one million abortions would be performed..."
Further, Reagan INCREASED the size of the federal government with the number of federal employees increasing from 2.8 million to 3 million while the federal debt soared from $700 Billion to nearly $3 Trillion!
In 1982 he enacted the a largest peacetime tax increase in US history! He signed federal tax increases every year of his 2-term presidency except in his first and his last year in office.
And when the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing killed 307 including 241 US soldiers Regan basically cut and ran! Not exactly the hawk Republicans seem to think he was.
9
Let's face facts; Corporate Welfare is by far the bigger, more systemic plague upon our society. With our convoluted tax code and lax oversight of same - it is way too easy to game the system. Cheating, stealing, monopolizing...all integral parts of our corporate capitalism.
15
And what about all the doctors and "clinics" that cheat welfare and medicare of billions?
9
All I can say is well done. Never mind that around this same time the Vice president of the United States was convicted of tax evasion and resigned and the president was impeached. Yet Republican's would use this woman to demonize an entire group of American citizens. And somehow we see Trump as an outlier? Denial is a monster.
9
The US welfare system began in 1935, would anyone dare call it successful?
3
@rab
Yes I would. It has successfully helped many unseen Americans move from poverty to the tax roles. It has kept a roof over the head of numerous children while allowing their parents to gain a foothold in the economy. Does it work every time and always result in a positive outcome. No of course not. However do we throw out the entire system because of those who never make it out, or do we look to constantly improve the system of assistance to the poor in the knowledge that at least some will move out of poverty? I vote for the latter.
13
It did what it was designed to do originally - prevent another recession - by ensuring that people have some very basic needs met no matter what. It would take an economist to explain how that worked but it has. While we have had a Great Recession and a few small ones in our lifetime, we have not had another big one - a depression. That said, the social welfare system has no way of lifting people out of the safety net once they fall in. The result is a terrible pox - multiple generations ensnared in a hash, expensive, complex and all consuming system just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, all the while being demonized by those a little better off.
5
Yes, I would call it successful. My grandfather was the operation director for the WPA in Alabama— a welfare program that put thousands back to work in the Great Depression. Social Security brought economic security to workers when they retired. And Medicaid and Medicare brought healthcare to low income citizens and the disabled. As a civil society, with great wealth, we should embrace social welfare. The social safety net is in tatters, and that’s bad for us all.
12
This is heartbreaking. But I'm going to bookmark this as article. Anytime I hear the word Welfare Queen, I'll forward the link and youtube link of the elderly white woman who voted for Trump and then had her Meals on Wheels defunded by the Federal government.
7
And what if it was $150,000? What kind of fool attacks a national program that benefits millions on the basis of a story about one cheater? Has ever been a substantial public or private endeavor that hasn't been cheated (of course not). This is the conservative mindset: Better to punish millions of the deserving than allow an unavoidable fraction of benefits to fall to the undeserving. I'll tell you what that is. Just plain nuts.
14
Boeing and other corporate giants commonly get hunbdreds of thousands or even millions in tax breaks every year or squeeze states and cities for tax breaks to move to that locale. Or they squeeze the cities where they are located with extortion and threaten to move their offices or plants unless they get more tax breaks and such. Of course states and cities give in usually to this disgusting scheme, which is perfectly legal despite its obvious con. The welfare kings are masters at getting welfare which they don't need but demand because that's how they play the game and the game is plenty rigged. Somehow it's OK with the public and perfectly legal. Give a poor black person a dime and they are welfare cheats. Corporate welfare is the real crime and makes me furious.
14
Whatever Ms. Taylor took from America by fraud pales in comparison to what was taken from the entire Black race in America. Not only during the slavery years, but after the Civil War with Jim Crowe laws, and via the systemic racism that created mass incarceration and a criminal "justice" system that extorts money disproportionally from Blacks.
Not to mention the killing of unarmed African American children in the streets by White vigilantes emboldened by viciously-racist and outrageous laws like "Stand Your Ground" and by White police officers. They do so with utter impunity, and that's why it keeps happening.
But what would Reagan know about any of that?! Quite obviously he didn't want to know about it either. Shameless!
12
"It doesn’t excuse her crimes to acknowledge that she was also a victim, and she was victimized because of her race."
This is were you loose me. At what point does a person assume full responsibility? And is a "person of color," a "woman," or "queer" individual always, at some level, a victim? I am a gay man whose single white mother who was on welfare. I now have a Ph.D. and am a college professor. I don't see myself as a victim at all.
7
The biggest "welfare queen" of all are people like Jeff Bezos. Never sells stock so pays no capital gains, borrows at like 2% against his stock to fund his lifestyle and get's massive federal refunds. Linda Taylor is an exception to the rule of the typical person receiving welfare. Reagan used this racist term to describe everyone on public assistance and later became one of the most overrated American Presidents in history.
17
@Ben Well said! I always loathed Reagan and am sick of hearing about his place in the Republican pantheon as perpetuated by his sychophantic former speechwriter, Peggy Noonan.
5
Ludicrous hypocrisy. The US government gives hundreds of billions in welfare subsidies to big business every year, that don't pay taxes, yet we're supposed to get worked up over so-called "welfare cheats?" I remember well Reagan's racist anti-welfare campaign, like Clinton's racist destruction of welfare (with Black women put in the background of Clinton signing the law). The demonization of working people, and people of color is a bipartisan method of division and distraction, aimed at fomenting resentment, the key emotion of right-wing politics.
7
The lily white red states harbor higher rates of welfare, teen pregnancy, and food stamp recipients. The blue states support those states as the donor states.
How may Fox viewers know that? The red state folks believe they are deserving of the government help. It is the dreaded other that is undeserving, the mythological welfare queens.
7
This is a great interview about Josh’s early research on the myth of the welfare queen on The AYG List with April Yvonne Garrett: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/theayglist/2014/01/15/slates-josh-levin-uncovers-the-real-welfare-queen-talks-r-kelly
1
Like most thieves, she was a bold combination of clever, ingenious, and stupid. Regardless, there are many like her roaming the streets. Reminds me of stories where corpses are allowed to mummify in homes so the the families/guardians can continue to collect social security, welfare, and disability.
2
Very sad because the true welfare queens are white mid-westerners.
7
So raped women in Alabama are now forced to give birth under penalty of law to an unwanted, unplanned kid, and as a single mother will need assistance to feed, house, educate and care for the newborn is instead stabbed in the back by Republican men disparaging her as a welfare queen. How trumpian! Even Orwell's world is a better!
Further Alabamian depraved ugliness, insults and cruelty to women “Any woman who shall have been delivered of a mulatto child, the same shall be prima facie evidence of guilt without further proof and shall justify a conviction of the woman.” "If Taylor had been declared a “Negro,” her mother would have been guilty of a felony." Now the GOP compound the tragedy by ORDERING her not to abort.
How would the white racist male Alabama legislators who passed this ban against abortion despite the woman being raped, respond if asked if the woman was white and the rapist black? See how fast their racist response come out!
Welfare Queen is such a typical GOP conservative misrepresentational slander. Calling the poor, especially minority women, many with unintended children, while they transfer trillions in wealth to the real wealthfare kings and queens in corp America and family dynasties with too much - flying in their Lear jets and Boeing 757s to their cruise ship sized yachts - not in a beat up Cadillac.
Had Ms. Taylor stole as much as trump has, she could've hired a bunch of lawyers and sued the government.
THANK YOU for clarifying Ms Taylor's story.
10
This line really stood out to me:
Arkansas law at the time banned the “cohabitation of persons of the Caucasian race and of the Negro race, whether open or secret.” According to a state statute, “Any woman who shall have been delivered of a mulatto child, the same shall be prima facie evidence of guilt without further proof and shall justify a conviction of the woman.”
And now almost 100 years later, the states in this region have not lost their interest in punishing women for what we do with our bodies. The more things change, the more they stay the same?
13
Speaking of welfare cheats....
see:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ivanka-trump-chinese-trademarks-win-new-approvals-despite-being-shut-down/
(Ivanka and Jared "earn" about $82 million while working "for free" in the White House)
10
A female relative is 58. She has no car. She lives in her son's home and babysits. She wants to work, she can't. She has no transportation.
She has worked and never missed a day, unless she had to. She has been abused, harassed by coworkers because of her strong work ethic.
I don't like her, either. But she is a hard worker. She was in a position, a bad one. She filed and was approved for food stamps.
I think it's a limited time. So, she had to find a job. Again, she has no transportation. She is in a remote country town.
So, in order to keep these food stamps, she has to see a employment specialist. Doing so, this professional creates a resume for her by her last 3 jobs.
I was appalled of what I saw on her resume.
This professional listed a recent job with a 9-month work history, skipped 15 years and listed a random temporary job.
Then offered her a minimum wage position.
Of course, she declined the low paid job offer. That's ludicrous. This woman has worked her ass off to keep a home, now she's in a bind and the State of Texas hired some whack-job as a potential helper for her.
This is real. I dare you to call her a food stamp queen. She has ridden a bike to work, worked 2 jobs, walked to work, she's been thrown to the welfare system intentionally.
9
People are complicated, regardless of their skin color. More power to those who face adversity and choose honesty and personal integrity. The rewards are beyond monetary and last for the generations that follow.
3
The country was created by slavery and the genocide of indigenous peoples.
That harshness has carried over to how we treat the poor.
Lower-income people in other industrialized countries are more productive, happier, and their children have a higher probability of breaking the cycle.
Can't we do better?
11
I started reading this article with little expectation. What I got is an education, a reminder that life is so often more complicated than we'd like to think. Good work, indeed.
19
Perhaps the current president's behavior, and ethics will serve as a stereotype of politicians resulting in strong ethics rules and requirements to run for the presidency. The current president has made a sham of long standing ethical standards, and traditions. Much like his private life he has undermined the rule of law at every opportunity.
5
People on welfare do not eat a disproportionate amount of lobster you claim. Would it make it alright if they ate a proportionate amount of lobster or if they bought a proportionate amount of lottery tickets? what data do we have to determine whether the money has appropriately spent? how data-driven are these programs generally?
2
To the best of my knowledge, the EBT card only works with food and cannot be used to purchase non-food items, including toilet paper.
2
One big reason for welfare and government subsidies of any kind is the fact that most the $ handed out lands , in the end , in the hands of the already wealthy and connected through sales , rents , fees and other sundry charges . If this was not the case welfare , food stamps , disability etc etc wouldn’t exist .
7
How much have appointees of trump’s stolen so far in less than 2.5 years? How about a rundown?
10
It's natural and understandable that workers get angry when non-workers take advantage of their generosity.
The myth of the welfare queen taps into that.
10
For everyone out here talking about myth I'll give an admittedly anecdotal example from my real life.
My mother in-law (long eye roll) has been on disability for +10 years, long before I met my wife. To this day she is more than capable of working, but doesn't want to cut off her benefits so she stays at home collecting disability. She goes to Atlantic City a couple times a month and to boot, she makes marijuana edibles for her son to sell. These are heavily religious, conservative people. They also happen to be white.
My point here is that the system is abused by EVERYONE. While some of the motivation for the attacks are certainly racial lets not all pretend like people of all backgrounds aren't milking the safety net. We need to reform the welfare system.
As a society we cannot incentivize people capable of work to stay home and benefit from the hard work of others. How to build a proper system that gets help to the people who need it but stops the current rampat abuse is a questions for someone smarter than me, but let's stop pretending like it's not a problem.
25
I CANNOT WAIT to read the book!
1
"Her take was estimated at $40,000 over many years, and she was officially charged with stealing around $9,000."
Her mistake was in not being in a position to take more. If you're going to steal from the government it has to be in far larger amounts, and being white, rich and powerful all but guarantees you never see a day in court or spend a night in prison.
21
Let’s not forget, it was a lot easier to bilk the system then, not so much now.
1
Two words: Ronald Reagan.
12
Notable that of the Dem Prez candidates who were in Congress, Biden bought into these racist narratives and voted for Clinton's 1996 welfare reform, but Sanders did not.
3
From Linda Taylor to Willie Horton, the sinister promotion of a single individual as fearsome avatar for a mythological "them" seems to be a Republican thing. And one can't read this:
“...didn’t go to no school I went to”
...without having a pretty good idea of how that speaker would have voted on November 8, 2016.
4
Racism will be the downfall of the United States, we are in the mist of this this nations decline. Demonizing the poor, people of color, the other... goes hand in hand with white supremacy and the justification for draconian public policies. To point the finger at Reagan or the Republican Party for this mindset, flies against the history of the United States.
5
And those that believe in those draconian laws, seem to forget that they will apply to them as well. I’m sure there were lots of people that supported Hitler for those reasons, believing that by demonizing others, it leaves them a free hand to benefit whether it’s a job or a larger ration, whatever. Once they realize that they are no better off, they will rarely blame those directly responsible for their station in life.
We see that in some supporters of Trump, the seem to forget it was a Republican administration that caused the economic crash, it was a Republican administration, that started what is now a 14 year 4 trillion dollar war, by using the WMD lie, and that every Republican President since Reagan has given the rich a total of 3 trillion in tax breaks, and they seem to forget that when the Republican sponsored payroll tax cut, was set to expire, the Republican controlled congress didn’t renew them.
They also believe that it was Clinton that negotiated NAFTA, they forget the republicans ran a 6 year investigation into the Clintons that went far beyond the mandate given to Starr, and by they way, when he couldn’t find anything on Whitewater, they just expanded the investigation, until all they could do was impeach Clinton for lying, about a consensual adultery. Which turned out to be rich, when Gingrich’s wife had issues with his affair, in fact there was a time when Republican house members were running around chasing the male pages.
4
Let's not forget, regardless of Reagan's not being honest with us, that as soon as he took office in 1981, he began to destroy America's middle class.
And that's why we are where we are now.
25
While I cannot of course excuse Linda Taylor’s crimes, to read that she was completely shunned by everyone her whole life through no fault of her own is heartbreaking. Her mother denies her birth, her father is nowhere, her extended family makes her sit in a car instead of with them because of the color of her skin, and no one bothers to help educate her—did this woman ever experience any kindness from this world? It’s not hard to imagine that she did what she did just to survive. Prejudice enables all kinds of evil in this world.
21
I’m from Arkansas, born in the late 50’s. I can’t remember a time I didn’t hear about ‘welfare queens’ and ‘welfare Cadillacs’ as a child. Reagan just buffed it and used it.
157
@Larry I'm from Arkansas, born in the early '50s. I don't remember ever hearing complaints about "welfare queens" and "welfare Cadillacs" until the Reagan years. While I'll grant you there have no doubt been abuses of the welfare system I'll maintain that Reagan used it as a device to get elected and was perfectly willing to demonize poverty in a way we never saw before.
I'm not going to argue that Kennedy was a saint and that Johnson wasn't a jerk, that Nixon wasn't a racist or that Carter wasn't inept. It's just that it was Reagan who took that racist trope and made it "OK" -and there were too many Republicans who were happy to go along.
Dixiecrats weren't any better, and there are plenty of racist northern Democrats just as bigoted as the worst Klanner. I'm not making apologies for any of them.
Frankly, it all just breaks my heart.
55
He didn’t buff it and reuse it, he gave it a special shine all his own, like Trump gives the words “white supremacy” a special shine all its own, while forgetting to admit that a large part of the voters in red states are poor, collect disability, or some form of welfare, while whining that it was Obama that killed the coal companies. While totally overlooking the fact that they put all their economic eggs in one basket, by thinking that would never change, ignorance truly is bliss.
38
@Larry I heard welfare queens and blacks in Cadillacs all over Connecticut in the 1960s, and especially from the father. It never occurred to him that because of redlining and racism, many middle-class blacks were not allowed to buy nice homes, but were instead allowed to invest in nice cars. When will we stop blaming the victims? Not while trump, the new reagan, is still around.
42
Weaponizing scenarios, people, groups or crimes is not new in politics. And it's a playbook that is used by both Republicans and Democrats to stoke their respective bases and cast aspersions at their enemies all at once. Reagan did it with the "Welfare Queen". Clinton did it with mass incarcerations for small time drug offenses. Trump has done it with immigrants. And Democrats are now doing it with conservative white males. Core to these efforts is to cast an entire group as part of a vast conspiracy or effort to undermine good hard working people. The last two examples (immigrants and white males) are ironically opposite sides of the same coin. We've been led to believe that illegal immigrants are overwhelming our country, taking our jobs and committing crimes everywhere they go. Not true. Similarly, we're being told by the left that all white males are all part of a vast white patriarchy conspiracy to keep all women and POC down. Also not true.
7
I can point to speeches by Trump and others on the right that indiscriminately castigate all illegal immigrants. Can you point to any assertions from Democrats that all white males conspire to keep women and POC down?
I think not. Painting the left with the same brush as the right is a huge reason for the resilience of the ridiculous right.
6
@John I'm afraid there are some false equivalencies and just plain falsehoods in your comment. Republicans are far and away the better players at this game.
2
This story (....seems more like an attempt at an 'explanation') is all well and good, but does not dispute the fact that some people need to take responsibility for their actions, decisions, and the situation in which they and their children may now find themselves. Doing the same thing over and over again has not nor will not produce different results. For some, it seems they are incapable of (or not desirous of) understanding that.
9
"Spending $4.6 million on shellfish isn’t a sign of government waste, according to the Defense Department’s top finance official.
It’s just dinner."
12 Billion and now another 15 Billion given to US Farmers and huge corporations like Smithfield (owned by China) and JBS Meats (owned by Brazil) because of tariffs.
Who are the real welfare queens?
19
You can't help but admire her ingenuity. OK. Let me put it in another way. Keep in mind the circumstances of her life gave her few options. When you are a "throwaway person" you create your own rules. Moreover, who was worse? Linda Taylor who was trying to survive, or the Saint of Conservative Politics, Ronald Reagan, who used her to paint a whole class of people undeserving of help?
18
No one's life is as simple as we tend to imagine. Fascinating read.
8
Wow, what a character. I'm going to definitely read that biography!
5
If you scrutinize the tax subsidies that have enriched passive real estate investors like Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and their ilk; as well as hedge fund traders and others who 'earn' their bloated income by pushing numbers around on paper rather than creating anything of genuine value to society, you're looking at the real "welfare queens" of America.
18
It's ironic that a republican TV actor started this country on the road to mayhem and tyranny. Now we have another TV 'actor' in charge, and our democracy is hanging by a thread.
15
@markymark: Let's not get anecdotal, though. There are plenty of hardworking actors who are perfectly decent people. (Probably.) We shouldn't judge them all just because a couple of them happen to have done a huge amount of damage to the country in their role as president...
What's not covered in this article and is very relevant is the fact that white people as a group are the largest welfare recipients in the program. Think about that for a moment and let it sink in.
So all these racist tropes are just that - racist. I don't condone Taylor's conduct in anyway. But reading about her life and circumstances makes me understand the "why".
18
Could you get some data on the claim that white people are the biggest welfare recipients? Are you talking percentage?
2
For many people, if someone outside of the group they associate themselves with commits a crime or an atrocity the reaction is "that's how those people are" whereas if someone within the group they associate with commits a crime or an atrocity then it only reflects on that person.
11
I hate be tell Bad News. President Donald Trump will Win Election 2020. He will destroy OBAMACARE . BUT REPUBLICANS tell this no plans horrible Death to many America 30 thousands months.
There will be no Medicare for all. Just pray for family left be hide there day will Judge.
We look both ways America Poor on Welfare or America Industries Big tax break.
Considering the billions given to farmers during the trade war and the billions being proposed this year, who exactly are the "welfare queens"?
13
I've never really understood the argument "some people commit fraud, therefore welfare is bad." Particularly from the same people who tell us that gun rights shouldn't be restricted just because some bad apples engage in crime with their guns. If fraud (aka crime) is a problem, better systems to prevent and detect it are the answer, not starving the honest people who need help.
15
Good point!
There are many forms of public assistance,food, housing., medical,child credit. Although this article shows the details of one woman ,it can not be broadened to the mass population of people on various forms of public assistance. For the vast majority are the working poor .The ones who are nickeled and dimed with low wages.no sick time and a poor transportation system. There has been much written of the struggles of the working poor but the likes of Reagan and others in government have not taken the time to educate them selves.
4
@Vincent: You're right, but in the case of Reagan and many others, it's not a case of not taking the time to learn, it's a question of just not caring, and skillfully using one figure to create a stereotype to support their cruel agenda. Their intent was to turn the middle and working classes against the poor, and more specifically, the white middle and working classes against the black population. Reagan didn't invent it, but he used it to turn back what seemed to be the possibility of a humane expansion of the spirit of the New Deal. Now we are at the point where the whole New Deal may be rolled back.
2
I never got lobster when I was eligible for food stamps. But, I surely didn't choose wisely either. I remember I bought steak, lots of Cheetos, and Diet Mountain Dew. It blew me away that the federal government would allow me to put Cheetos and Diet Mountain Dew on the government's tab.
11
In America, broadly speaking there are 3 types of welfare: Corporate welfare in the form of massive tax breaks and subsidies for private companies, military welfare in the form of patronage and largesse for defense contractors and the bases that dot the national landscape (the South in particular), and social welfare in the form of programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the Affordable Care Act.
Personally, I see far less need for the first two types of welfare I mentioned compared to the third. The running joke about South Carolina is that the state has so many military bases that the whole landmass would sink into the Atlantic Ocean if another one were built.
Now, isn't that a somewhat bigger issue that some low-income person purchasing subsidized health insurance on a federal exchange? Entire U.S. states are dependent on military welfare for their survival, akin to how the economy of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa would collapse (some predict) if the U.S. military withdrew its soldiers and closed its military bases.
The priorities of the U.S. government are so out of whack it's a miracle the whole country hasn't imploded yet a la the Soviet Union in 1991.
3
While Rick Scott oversaw the largest medicare fraud in history. Punishment? He got to the Florida governor and senator. It's nice to be white and male. Different rules apply.
21
Her "parentage made her a non person in the eyes of her relatives. One of her mother's brothers refused to let Taylor set foot inside his home."
Awful total rejection. The girl Taylor devised ways to survive. Her story tells a great deal about the Regan's "shining city upon a hill," doesn't it?
13
And yet Congress's welfare fund, (just one of the many welfare funds for the rich) is perfectly acceptable, no questions asked.
Apparently rich white men deserve, need, are entitled to, all the help they can get, paid for by tax-payers. Ironic really, because this says they are not only not expected to be responsible, mature adults but they are incapable of it.
"In the event of a monetary settlement of sexual harassment complaints, members of Congress can draw on a taxpayer-funded account set up within the Treasury Department to cover their legal expenses and settle cases. The account has paid out $17 million in the past 10 years, public records show, although it is not clear how much of that was for cases of sexual harassment."
And, not to forget the many welfare programs for the rich set up with no questions asked, such as tax-payers money making up the shortfall: food-stamps, health benefits etc., for employees who receive non-livable wages for a full working week from highly profitable billionaire companies who often pay little to no taxes.
Racism, classism all anti or isms - bizarre, cruel, idiotic myths and mindsets perpetrated by low-life humans to oppress other humans. If it weren't so savage and inhumane it would be laughable—pathetic and puerile as it is.
5
Anecdotal Ronnie loved to stir up hate and resentment. His often used "I'm from the government and I'm here to solve your problems stirred core Republican hatred of government for decades. For such a "positive" guy he surely like to slip in the gutter with the best of them.
3
Nothing is said of her mental health, which was probably not very good. The vilification of Linda Taylor was necessary to condemn and oppress a whole group of people for decades.
Likewise, we see today how Stephen Miller is gratuitously vilifying and racializing Central American refugees. What’s specially repulsive is that Miller shares a history of vilification, persecution and worse. Trump’s immigration proposal was/is architected by Miller and Kushner. Btw, the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma (maker of OxyContin), are responsible for 700K deaths from overdoses. Where is the morality?
We also see how Trump is pandering to those dead set In oppressing women, as exemplified by the anti-abortion law passed by the Alabama legislature and signed by its governor, a woman, no less. Trump’s appointed judges are a real danger.
5
Wow! Thanks for providing the story behind the myth!
7
whether Taylor was a real person who led a troubled life, or a total fabrication, the myth of the welfare queen, standing in for anyone who needs and accepts help from the government, was a major driver of America's rightward lurch and a first step in justifying racism by other names which President Trump uses to galvanize his base.
6
So, apparently, there's no welfare fraud at all then? And even if there was, it'd still be OK to throw taxpayer dollars at the undeserving like we do in a lot of disability cases right?
6
I'm curious to know how many disability fraud cases you personally know of & how many of those you have reported to the proper authorities. There are quite a lot of people out there who, like you, claim to have witnessed, first-hand, such fraud on a grand scale but have never lifted a finger to do anything constructive about it. (Unsubstantiated gripes in the NYT's comments are not constructive.) The fact is, there is very little disability fraud, except that created wholly in the minds of right-wingers to enrage people & advance their war on poor, young, old, & disabled people. Please don't circulate falsehoods & if you actually know of fraud, do your part & report it.
4
This woman may have been exaggerated as the poster queen, but multi-generational welfare was a problem that was addressed during the Clinton administration, without the calamitous piles of people starving to death predicted by one side.
7
Can't she just claim $150,000 in losses and call it good?
104
@grump Not without a tax accountant who would cost the same.
8
This American story sound’s like something out of South Africa’s Apartheid era. It ended in South Africa not so in America.
2
Monstrous racism feeding monstrous resentment, which feeds more racism...
4
I don't think pointing out she was a murderer, kidnapper and hooker is the best way of stamping out the racist "welfare queen" meme.
6
The woman was a racist baiter's dream. Just enough factoids to exacerbate the fears and resentments of fear addicts who find it easier to blame scapegoats (provided by phonies and frauds) than look in the mirror and admit that cowardice is the source of their real and imagined anxieties.
DopamineProject.org
There are not many of our current societal problems that can't be traced directly back to (R)onald (R)eagan.
6
@Miss Anne Thrope
This includes his signing a bill which bestowed legal status on just under 3 million undocumented migrants. The bill was supposed to halt all further illegal immigration, but it inadvertently encouraged many to migrate here illegally, on the bet that they, too, would eventually be granted legal status.
If we were foolish enough to offer another amnesty to the current crop of undocumented migrants then even more will make the gamble to come.
1
She was a thief, liar and cheat . If she was a white woman she would still be the "welfare Queen"
10
@Rich g.
And if she were a white male she could be president of the United States, a white member of Congress, a white CEO, or a white banker.
7
White folks.
2
@Fanonian Not all of us.
1
"Illegals" is the new Welfare Queen.
Just another republican racist propaganda trope.
4
@magicisnotreal
I wish reporters would investigate how much each state, county, local municipality and school district is spending of its own money and federal money to subsidize the lives of undocumented immigrants minus the amount the latter pay in taxes.
Imagine the difference it could make in the lives of our own needy citizens, if we could spend this money on educating or retraining them.
2
Any serious study of the American income tax code since 1980 shows that America’s greatest welfare queens are large corporations, their rich shareholders and the millionaire-billionaire tax dodging class.
Unfortunately, the GOP Whites R Us platform since 1968 has been this:
“"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
- LBJ complaining about voters in 1960
Nice GOPeople.
18
Only in the mind of a tax and spend liberal is keeping $1,000,000 of your own money the equivalent to distributing $1,000,000 of others’ money based on a bureaucratic social policy.
2
@ from where I sit... if you thrive in our system as a result of the great and costly support our society, laws and infrastructure give you, you arguably owe a GREATER debt back to it. If you don't follow this logic, imagine earning your million in Afghanistan, Indonesia or Venezuela.
3
As a biracial woman, Pop was Jamaican, Mum from the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and I a first generation born in the United States, many black people in this country viewed my lighter skin, green eyes and long hair as the results of rape when I am simply the genetic product of two people from diverse heritage. I spend more than a few years listening to black women hurl derogatory insults and white women assume that my Mum was black and my Pop white (rape-thing again) to hurl their insults. My parents immigrated to this country so that their children could have a good education; which they accomplished. They worked every day, bought land and instilled a very strong work ethic in their children. While public assistance is there for those who need it, it was never part of my life for which I am grateful. My immigrant parents lived the American dream. Stereotypes hurt those who use them and those who are the objects of them. In 2019, we have to move beyond this crap of attempting to place every person with brown or black skin in the same situation. Human beings are not monolithic, especially in this country.
321
If your family was able to not only survive bit to flourish without handouts, why can’t everyone else?
2
Because circumstances dictate that not everyone goes through the same struggles and has the same resources?
69
@From Where I Sit
Because not all brains are created equal. Some before they are born are destined to believe they can, while others are beaten down to believe they cannot. Both go out to prove their beliefs.
14
Welfare fraud is still in the Billions,infact it's more pervasive today than ever. Welfare is a substantial parallel economy where groceries are commonly bartered and traded for drugs which are then consumed and re sold .
6
Reagan used race baiting and racism to his advantage. Reagan launched the dog whistle racism. Trump just speaks plain white racist nationalism.
The justice system goes hard after petty theft and allows corporate crooks to get little or no jail time.
8
For Republicans, the Welfare Queen is like Benghazi. A way to obfuscate and ignore their massive corruption and failures, like the Iraq War, while hyper-inflating something that is .00002% as bad as what they have already done, and continue to do on a daily basis.
Vilify the inner city J-Walker, then praise Paul Manafort as "brave".
10
The story, at one point, poo-poohs the idea of food stamps being used to buy lobster.
I've personally witnessed that, in the 1970s in Baltimore. A young, attractive, beautifully dressed -- over-dressed for a supermarket visit – young black woman just on front of me at the checkout counter. She had one item: a container of hand-picked highest quality Maryland blue crab meat, $18 -- and she paid with food stamps!
Food stamps? Her jacket alone must have cost at least five times the price of that crab meat.
I described my experience to some Baltimore natives believing it to be exceptional, and was ridiculed as naive: Almost everyone I knew had witnessed the same sort of event: Luxury groceries being bought with food stamps.
This was 40 years ago. Has anything changed?
11
@Austin Liberal
Should we insist that people on food stamps dress a certain way and eat specific non-luxury foods so that luxury foods can be reserved for cash paying customers? Should we take an inventory of their belongings and recommend getting rid of any items that would make it appear that you were not struggling financially?
What if that crab was going into a much larger dish of say pasta that was going to feed 10 people at a dinner gathering of neighbors to celebrate a special occasion? Should people who are struggling financially not be allowed certain experience?
Why do you bother to notice how people pay for groceries? This anecdote doesn't provide enough information to adequately judge the need of the person or the effectiveness of the program. We certainly sholdn't base the existence of the program or how it's run on individual anecdotes.
14
@Austin Liberal
And farmers have been getting farm subsidies since the 1930s. A form of welfare. Has anything changed?
9
@Matt
Hand-picked meat from Chesapeake Bay blue crab is a luxury product. Not food stamp stuff.
4
Reagan, or his campaign staff, found a brilliant way to exploit existing racist stereotypes by creating a powerful and easily understood symbol. Judged as fact, it was untrue. But judged as marketing (the Trump standard of truth), it was genius, as is shown by the fact that it lives on to this day.
4
If you are looking for the perfect image of a "welfare queen," may I suggest a photo of Donald Trump? He has received far more support from the government in his ventures that any woman on traditional aid programs could imagine - or that tens of thousands of women on aid programs could possibly receive.
22
"Linda Taylor was inarguably a villain... It doesn’t excuse her crimes to acknowledge that she was also a victim..."
Reading the story of her life made me think in some ways the exact opposite of this closing statement. It's common for people to concede statements like this. It seems to me that the more we learn about human psychology, the more we realize that the behavior and actions of people are directly impacted by their experiences. It's possible that at some point in her life she could have decided to make different decisions that would have led her to do less harm to others, but every event that preceded her bad actions were leading to her not having a good foundation for living in a civil society.
I think a stable society clearly needs laws that should be enforced, and actions should be taken to stop and prevent continuing criminal behavior, but why do we feel the need to label people villains or insist we don't excuse wrong doing?
How do we expect someone who has been neglected and abused their entire life to behave? What do we do as a society to promote the outcomes we expect when someone is failed by the people charged with raising them?
My closing would be: While we should continue to enforce laws, some bad actions can be excused due to the circumstances of their life, and effort should be made by society to offer support and understanding to help bring those who have done wrong back into society, not exploit it for political gain.
4
"...she used 80 aliases and her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.”
That's a mini-version of any modern American corporation in the military industrial cesspool busily stiffing US taxpayers. Welfare Queens indeed.
10
She certainly sounds like a fairly awful person, but pitiable, too.
She certainly doesn’t sound typical. It is a shame that her outsized reputation has done so much damage to poor people in this country’s.
And she is small fry compared to so many recent fraudsters....
3
Reagan officially ushered in the White Supremacist Netherworld where truth, justice, and the American way the stuff of comic books. Using his political pulpit the Jellybeans President preached anti-Black rhetoric that his Republican base unquestionably embraced. In his second term it came to light that his failing mind was full of jellybeans. Enter Trump whose wet-brain manifestos, tweets, and bean-brained Senate is overly eager to insult people of color, the poor, the sick, and Californians.
7
Subsidized farmers are the new welfare queens!
8
I don't think it's racist or a myth.
I see examples on a near DAILY basis in the Emergency Department of folks on Medicaid and welfare with the latest iphones, nice jewelry, handbags, and nice clothing while their children are dirty and in rags. There are MANY individuals out there milking the system out there who believe jobs are for suckers.
12
Regardless of family history, the fact of the matter is the woman was a grifter so she could support herself and survive in a dog eat dog world.
2
What I find disgusting is not Taylor's crimes. She was a run-of-the-mill sociopath with a backstory that explains how she became that way. No. What I find sickening is how felonies are tolerated, even celebrated, if the felon is a white man sitting in our White House, while people like Taylor get crucified for stealing relatively little.
14
If it happens to be true, it ain't a 'racist myth.'
5
Reagan launched his campaign for presidency in Philadelphia Mississippi right near where Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were murdered. He lay a wreath at Bitburg cemetery where German SS officers were buried. Glibness, cynicism and a reactionary heart brought "welfare queen" to his cruel lips.
7
Then there was the Central American lady that parlayed the welfare money of 150 or so members of her family into a penthouse in Boston. Darn those stereotypes.
3
@Ryan
Please give citations for your assertion.
5
It is all just a huge hustle for dollars. There is an enormous amount of waste. Welfare, disability, tort lawsuits, workers comp, etc. I mean the mayor of Baltimore hustles $500K - why shouldn't I be gettin mine? I do not believe this NYT fairy tale tells the truth about the grift and abuse. There are massive amounts of people gaming the system. Juries in places like Baltimore and Philadelphia show up to hand out money to members of the community. The "welfare and disability" system is broken and really went in the trashcan under Obama.
4
The Queen was as big a myth as the “forgotten Midwest” those opioid addicted, White welfare queens that voted for Trump.
4
Welfare fraud existed way back when, it exists now.
Whatever the level, it is a crime and warrants detection and punishment. Why is this even debatable?
As for Linda Taylor, the "original welfare queen," once again the NYT tries to depict a criminal as a victim.
6
Doesn't Trump's tax record exposed by this newspaper show he's long been a "welfare queen" and so has his family?
7
@Carl Ian Schwartz What she did was dishonest
, what we real estate investors do is perfectly legal, you need to contact your Congressperson if you want the law changed.
"He that is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her." - Jesus Christ as quoted in John 8:7.
Apparently there are a lot of sinless folks among us. Must be nice.
203
@Michael
"Sin" is an artificial socio-religious construct.
9
@J Darby
That may be true, yet it is the controlling motivation and the principal weapon of the Right these sad days.
18
@Michael Yep, and most of the "sinless" voted for King Cyrus II.
11
The unconscious bias that exists in us all causes some to believe the actions of individuals in certain groups represents the entire group, while allowing them distinguish themselves from anything negative done by a person within the group they connect themselves with.
2
This stereotype took on a life of its own. I've lived in the metro NY area my entire life. It's a perfect place to see and hear about multiple welfare queens. I've seen none and heard of none. Yet this stereotype is used to deny people the monetary assistance they need. If anything, Taylor's story should be publicized as a cautionary tale: never ever treat someone as their skin color. Every person is more than just a skin color, a religion, or their gender. Her attitudes can be attributed to how she was treated by her "family" of origin. And that can be blamed on the South's peculiar institution of slavery.
8
Two things can be true at once. There are MANY on the poor end of the spectrum who abuse the welfare system and live off of those of us who are producers and taxpayers. These people come in all flavors and colors. There are also many rich who game the system to avoid paying their fair share and live off of us who are producers and taxpayers. They also come in all flavors and colors. This is not an issue of race or gender... it's about people who game the system.
19
@Mystery Lits "If you're not working the system, the system is working you."
1
Amongst actual working working class, concrete visable fraudelant actions generating more angst than many times more deleterious abstract everyday Wall Street “greed is good” machinations.
6
It seems that societal racism is the culprit in this person’s life. Too bad her family bought into this small, mean way of thinking and rejected this child. Trying to live unloved. Awful.
7
By exaggerating the myth of the "Welfare Queen" Ronald Reagan set the course for the modern Republican party. Whereas once there was a sense of noblesse oblige and mature, if condescending, humanity, Reagan gave Republicans an excuse to shirk those obligations on the grounds that they were being used. Put together with Democrat's failure to reject segregation in the post WWII period that shift guaranteed the continued subjugation of people of color especially, but also anybody that the rich and powerful could use to maintain their privilege.
Donald Trump is the logical inheritor of that legacy; Ronald Reagan set the stage and Trump strode onto it.
543
@Amy
That's the Republican palaver. What they actually do is line the pockets of the top 1%.
They have brought back no jobs to the US, sponsored no job training, done nothing to advance education for working class children, undermined and opposed labor unions, imposed tariffs that will cost the middle class jobs and raise prices for goods consumed, enacted tax cuts that benefit the rich, greatly reduced estate taxes again benefitting the rich, and oppose raising the minimum wage. Real wages after adjustment for inflation have dropped drastically.
My guess is that your family income is in six or more figures and you don't buy most of your clothing at Walmart.
138
@Al M
I live in Appalachian E KY and have been here for 45 years of my 75. My wife as a newly minted social worker in my native KS was quizzed often about the poverty and other LBJ initiatives they'd heard about in college social work classes. She saw little difference in those folks who held the "welfare mentality" between either state. My 95 yr old KY mother-in-law can tell you that, for the most part, the same families remain in that welfare mentality, dating back to the first years of welfare payments long before my time. The progressive mindset often plays into this narrative of the government "giving us stuff". Clinton began the part-time work expectation for continued welfare benefits which is under attack by progressives as we speak. When some people want to pay everyone a universal income, I see zero light at the end of that tunnel of working for what you get?
I live near "enclaves" of non-working local people. Most took no advantage of the same school system that my own children used to become professionals.
Near to local welfare types are Mexicans who traveled thousands of miles to work hard! at a sawmill for ~ $10-12 hourly wages. Some earn more working with race horses for peoples high dollar entertainment. Or tend tobacco crops raising hundred's of thousands of pounds for the same people who own the horses after the crop was removed from the poorer areas of this state where it was a valuable crop to poor owners of small farms.
Work ethic matters.
33
@Al M I'll grant you that Clinton compromised. But let us not overlook Newt Gingrinch and the Tea Party and their role in it all.
The problem with history is that it all has a history!
45
The outrage! This victimized person turns into a villain and steals $9000, while the privileged president of the United States cheats private citizens and the US government of hundreds of millions if not billions, and that’s ok!
17
The notion that Linda Taylor has been "forgotten" is laughable. She even has a Wikipedia entry. Google her name and "welfare queen" and you get 19,200 results, which include journalistic pieces more comprehensive than this one.
I suppose it's good to introduce her and her shenanigans -- and Reagan's -- to people who missed it in the day, but it is not news. I hope the Times didn't pay too much for this rehash.
And a book? Won't bother for having already read some of the excellent and lengthy reportage years ago. Hard to imagine there won't be issues of plagiarism.
1
What about being a tax-dodging king (or queen)? Some make great career. One occupies even the Oval Office.
12
As is sometimes pointed out, and as this story further proves, Reagan (along with Nixon, of course) laid the groundwork for the race-baiting and shameless lying that are the hallmark of today's Republican party and especially its Individual #1.
3
Substitute Taylor's face with anyone of the Wall Street Masters of the Universe and add about six or seven more zeroes to her alleged fraud.
16
Well, leave it to Ronald Reagan to gin up the stereotype that would gift him two terms in the White House. Isn’t that the way it works for white men who make their living in politics? And how different , really, are Reagan and his current successor, two presidents of incomprehensible popularity?
Linda Taylor was no saint, but she was far less blameworthy for what she became because she was the quintessential product of America’s underclass where race and poverty and anonymity intersect. How can any child develop into a healthy, reasonably educated and productive citizen when that child’s own mother disowns her because she’s the product of an assignation that, as stated here, was a felony in the South? Linda Taylor, whoever she was, was kicked to the curb early in life. She never had a chance.
Now contrast her lot with that of Reagan. It’s always been easy for those on the sunny side of the street to turn another’s misfortune into their profit. Reagan’s racism would serve him well as president; indeed, when set beside his other egregious sins (Iran Contra, e.g.), it was his signature, go-to move. He was against any small gain that a black person might enjoy; they and the Linda Taylor’s in forgotten America only exist to reinforce stereotypes that work to cement white supremacy.
I don’t suppose that Reagan would brand Donald Trump a “welfare king” for defrauding the taxpaying citizens of New York out of revenue for cheating on his taxes.
“When you’re white, you’re right...”
10
I think the title should be How the ‘Welfare Queen’ Was Made. It seems to me she was born with all the human potential any of us were and then the system went to work on her.
4
The real welfare kings and queens in American society are corporations and the agricultural industry. All receive welfare under other names. They receive lots of it. Farmers are even receiving special welfare because of the Trump tariff subsidies. Yet they complain that they're not getting enough.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2018/11/25/federal-trade-assistance-trickles-iowa-farmers-hurt-trade-war/2065652002/
8
What is this article doing here as the divisive US GOP ramps up to steal another election??
Who decided to give them this ammunition??
2
Thanks NYT for placing flesh on the bones of this skeleton. Yes her kidnapping and the like make for a grotesque corpse--but a human none-the-less. Its an important distinction b/c caricatures evoke little to no humanity.
2
I could see through Reagan immediately and I was still a boy when he was elected. He was a Negotiator with Iran during the campaign (before he was President), an Illegal seller of weapons to Iran to fund priest-killing right-wing terrorists, a standard-bearer of the war on drugs, who trebled our national debt. He gutted government-funded science, setting medical science back decades. He perpetuated the lie that the public sector is bad and only private business is good. Is anyone surprised by his race-baiting tactics?!
7
Now imagine the millions of people stigmatized by Reagan’s callous, casual racism! And recall his words about “young bucks” receiving welfare.
Yes, she was a criminal, though mostly, from this article, a petty criminal.
Yes, she was a victim, all her life, of racism, bigotry, and Jim Crow.
Prima facie evidence of miscegenation sure sounds a lot like prima facie evidence of abortion. I guess Alabama is just broadening it’s targets for persecution.
The damage caused by all this is tragic and incalculable. What is the gain to society? I can see none.
3
I wonder how the cost of welfare fraud compares to the 50 billion dollars of employee thievery that goes on in this country every year.
5
@Vincent who cares? It's still wrong isn't it? Or is it acceptable to defraud American Taxpayers?
Nothing to see here, she was only engaging in “sport.”
1
Nurture vs nature. I fear in, Ms Taylor's circumstances, she would have turned out a horrible person. Her family and her surroundings were toxic.
As depicted in the article, the caricature is hardly “baseless”, and the claim that welfare recipients do not buy a “disproportionate” amount of lobster, while amusing, hardly helps the author’s defense of welfare queens.
3
My god, with a life and family like that, it's no wonder this woman turned to crime. I would want revenge on the world as well.
8
Bill Clinton ended Welfare as "we know it" and parlayed his presidency into a fortune as he knew it.
5
If you're poor, especially if you're poor and black, you get vilified for figuring out how to rook the system. If you're rich and white, especially if you're rich, white and male, you get elected President and your party extols how brilliantly smart you were for figuring out how to rook the system.
13
Propaganda is always based upon the distortion of fact. Reagan, and Conservatives today, knew and know that the selected example was not the rule. But it fit their needs. Many other examples persist today. Blacks are all criminals. Muslims are all terrorists. All police shootings are justified (or if you are of the other political persuasion all are racially motivated). Americans don't want to consider statistics, or underlying reasons, or the details of a particular incident or situation. They want to apply blanket generalizations that support their prejudices.
2
Linda Taylor, unwanted biracial child of the Deep South, I hail you as a Shape Shifting One Woman Force of Creativity and Nature. Cast out of family and County, you learned the art of grifting and self-invention while mastering the tools of survival like a Queen.
You are now a Legend.
5
Geez ,thanks for clearing that up. So much better now.
None of this changes the fact that "Saint Ronnie" blatantly exploited racism and the rage of Southerners against LBJ's push for the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court's outlawing all miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia, and, finally appointing Thurgood Marshall, the brilliant lawyer who won Brown v. Board, to a seat on the Supreme Court.
Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign, very deliberately, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, just 16 years after Schwerner, Cheney, and Goodman were murdered there by the KKK with local police help.
Rumors persist to this day that the Reagan campaign actually engaged in TREASON, getting the Islamic Republic to refuse to release the American hostages until after the election in return for what became known as Iran-Contra.
So spewing out a blatant lie about "the Welfare Queen" was a cynical play on the above-described racism to get elected.
When he then began rolling back programs that benefited the poor, destroying unions, giving GIANT tax cuts to the rich, and, finally, encouraging US companies to move their manufacturing off-shore (which helped kill the unions) so China could take over making EVERYTHING! Prior to the Tienanmen Square massacre "Made in China" was exotic. Now? It's everything.
And the lie about the Welfare Queen was a key early piece to bringing about the dreadful changes that ultimately led to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.
8
Abortion was legal in America until the mid 19th century usually performed by midwives. For every woman subject to persecution for abortion, the man who impregnated her should be sterilized and imprisoned even if they are white men. Medical personnel who have to help women get through late term abortions done to save the woman’s life know how tragic it is as these women desperately wanted that child. So go ahead male politicians and make it worse.
2
Trump can get away with jacking up the rates at Mara Lago and his hotel in Washington DC, his appointees (eg, Pruitt, Price, Mr. and Mrs. Mnuchin, etc.) get away with robbing us blind...while his former Trump team members during his campaigning are facing prison time...
.... the same people who perpetuated the myth of the "Welfare Queen" endorsed a birther who has turned theft into a sport.
6
I recall Reagan had another trope about welfare, one about folks on food stamps buying vodka and other alcohol. Like many statements we hear today, it was totally false -- but hard to counter nonetheless.
3
Bottom line, liberals in general did pervert the safety net circa 11950s- 1970s and created the modern welfare "queen" state that last till app. 1980.
I saw it in NYC, it nearly destroyed it. The liberals perverted the great work done by FDR and LBJ types and put a million people on welfare in the 1950-1970s to get votes. There are still generations of people on welfare in my apt. bldg. They is how long it lasted.
Then Reagan came in and stopped it but then immediately reversed it and brought back the corporate welfare queens, corporations making obscene profits, paying no taxes, and getting billions for actually running corporations into the ground.
The trick is to catch these perverters in the bud. Now, stop the corporate welfare queens under Trump but don't go back to the days of Wagner and Lindsey in NYC.
4
I wonder if she ever considered finding a job and getting an education?
1
Would you, if your whole life you were ignored as if you didn't exist?
How do you know?
8
@Gary Baumgartner where and how would she get this education? Especially her elementary one? To enroll your parent has to accompany you and give details, present a birth certificate. Her lily white mother was not going to go to the colored school and expose herself as the mother a biracial child. Linda learn early that exposing her heritage at anytime was not an advantage ever.
This woman may have murdered THREE PEOPLE, and we were all so steamed up about the exaggerated claims of welfare fraud no one bothered to figure that part out...deep American weirdness on display. Also, while we consider that women may soon be getting tossed in jail and disenfranchised for miscarrying, think about how her mother would have been declared a felon for simply living in the same house as her mixed-race daughter. So much to think about here.
4
Donald John Trump,Sr is the ultimate American reigning and ruling ' Welfare Queen'.
Trump inherited 295 streams of income from his daddy that allowed him to survive losing more money than any other American aka a billion dollars or so over a ten year period.
The American income tax code is the primary welfare mechanism.
By providing deductions, credits, subsidies and lower tax rates for certain industries, persons, transactions, sources of income, business entity structures, contracts and securities favored by special interests lobbyists buying legislative, executive and judicial compliance and complucity.
As always what is legal in America is what should shame and embarrass most Americans.
Moreover the white European Judeo- Christian misogynist patriarchal supremacist debased depiction of this woman is deeply rooted in the educational socioeconomic political rise of the largest oldest contiguous black community in America aka the almighty South Side of Chicago.
Between the Outfit aka the Mafia and the Machine aka the white ethnic sectarian majority black power was the looming threat that deserved and needed to be crushed.
Using a few complicit compliant black politicians and preachers and gangsters to cover their perfidy. Bipartisan corruption and crime is the way of Cook aka Crook County. And that criminal corrupt extends to elected Illinois state and federal officials.
3
The author of this article wrote an earlier, more lengthy expose on this subject for Slate, found here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html
2
Every single welfare mom I know living on section 8 or in public housing has a live-in boyfriend, the father of one or more of her children, whom she hides from the authorities. These men are often employed but are getting their rents paid by us taxpayers. Marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol and sometimes hard drugs form part of almost all their lifestyles. Report them to authorities and what are the consequences to the kids?
4
So you're saying that poor women shouldn't be allowed to have sexual partners? You probably allow yourself at least one, don't you?
5
@N Not saying that at all, but I resent paying the boyfriend's rent via my taxes.
3
Birth control.
Have a sexual partner, by all means, but please do not ask middle-class people who limit the number of children they have to 1-2 or 3 at most to pay for someone else's 4-7.
Nor do I care what color or creed the recipients are. We can never build enough low-income housing for people whose numbers increase exponentially.
Birth control.
2
The GOP has been doing this for years! Using Race to win elections. Nothing has changed!
But who are the real welfare queens? Of course, the "white" farmers who are being subsidized, welfare at it's best and for greater amounts than anything, Linda Taylor was claimed to have stolen.
White man = Subsidized Income
Black/Brown People = Welfare queens
5
Not only is Taylor a stereotype of welfare abuse, she represents the worst fear of working people, the idea that even one person is getting away with getting something for nothing. The working people of the US, especially those who lean toward the conservative side are willing to set millions of people adrift in a sea of poverty and marginalization if there is even the slightest chance that the undeserving will get something for free.
In any socialist styled solution there will be weaknesses that can be exploited by the unscrupulous. Certainly well crafted solutions will by virtue of design avoid those weaknesses but we can't abandon the people in need just to prevent graft.
I would lay much of the blame for the opportunity for corruption at the feet of Congress. The welfare system, if you can call it a system, is a disjoint array of separate agencies that invite exploitation while at the same time placing a constant burden of repetitive applications, documentation and meetings on the applicants that, in a real system, should be mostly avoidable.
3
@J.I.M. Count me among those untroubled by thought of setting millions of welfare recipients adrift in a sea of poverty and marginalization. If you want my tax dollars to support you and your brood, then understand that it's not an "all you can eat buffet" and that eventually I expect you to work for your money. If that means picking up trash or washing taxpayer cars, I'm 100% OK with that.
1
@RJ Thank you for making my point so clearly. You think that you deserve your good fortune. You think that those who don't share your good fortune have had exactly the same opportunities to make their own good fortune but unlike you have failed and so deserve their fate. Your belief in a meritocracy, whether you sense it conscientiously or not, is an illusion.
You have benefited from good luck and a system in which hundreds of millions of people consent to be governed by law. As much as you might not want to admit it, the collective commitment of those millions to live by the rule of law made it possible for you to exploit your good fortune and to retain your property without fear. I would have no intention to denigrate what accomplishments your life might provide but you and no other American can claim to be self made and lay absolute claim to your good fortune.
This is not Rome. We live in a society that is ever more intricately intertwined in a web of mutual dependency and benefit. The US is already a substantially socialist state in which the people by virtue of their consent to be governed take some share of the fruits of a system that has produced such enormous prosperity for so many. There are no acts of god. Man has taken charge of his destiny and must take responsibility for its consequences both good and bad.
2
The myth of the welfare cheat has served to bolster the insecurities of resentful whites ever since the inception of welfare. This despite the almost universal human desire to procreate, and the ease with which unintended pregnancies occur.
It seems many proclaim with apparent sincerity, "I chose to have children out of LOVE and a desire to share and contribute to society," and then express the opinion, with apparent sincerity, "SHE had children in order to cheat the welfare system."
Virtue signaling is bad enough. Racist virtue signaling is disqualifying.
149
@William Romp I've also had to have this conversation with people about unemployment compensation! As if people who are out of work are just raking in fortunes. If only people would bother to educate themselves about any of these social services, we might be able to have a productive discussion. Instead, it's just more tribalist nonsense. Of course there are people who abuse anything! There are cheats and liars everywhere. So, Taylor was one of them. So what? She doesn't represent all welfare recipients. Or even most. There will always be people who game the system. That doesn't mean we do away with the entire system.
27
@William Romp
Saying "virtue signaling" is literally no different than reagan saying welfare queen.
In both cases there is no such thing.
To use the term is to reveal more about yourself than anything else.
8
Levin provides plenty of excuses for Taylor, who was clearly a criminal and took advantage of a government program meant to eliminate poverty, something people of all races committed. Does Levin have any research on when widespread "welfare" payments began in the mid-1960s and the rash of teen pregnancies that have erupted in some communities?
4
Politicians will continue to use stereotypes as long as we continue to fall for them.
150
Trump is about to push a massive farm assistance program to protect his loyal clueless rural voters from his disasterous trade policies. There are many kinds of welfare including that which the wealthy who can afford loophole attorneys use to sustain their gilded lifestyles. Seems like this woman, given the right skin color and gender, would have been presidential timber, or at least, King of Queens.
Thanks for the history lesson.
7
The real "welfare queens" are those who are extremely wealthy and somehow pay no taxes, calling themselves smart! Trump reported that he earned over $400,000,000 in 2018. Will he owe any taxes on that nearly half a billion? And don't tell me he is serving the country when he spends over half his time watching TV, tweeting and playing golf, plus running to "rallies" and dedication speeches on the taxpayer dime which are thinly disguised campaign events!
9
Don't worry, disgruntled conservatives - even when the poor "win" by gaming the system, they still lose.
Life on the bottom is continuous indignity. The worse they have it, the more grateful they're supposed to be to have anything at all. That's the incentive for working hard and getting nowhere - they get to be grateful.
Unlike the holier-than-thou commenters, I don't know what choices I'd have made if I'd ever had to really struggle.
11
Josh Levin renders Linda Taylor's life far more sympathetically in this 1600-word oped than he did in his 17,000-word Slate magazine essay in 2013.
In this oped, she's a wiley survivor, even a victim, though Levin does assert that "welfare fraud, it turned out, was the least of her crimes."
He does not, however, mention any of those other "crimes." Indeed, in his 2013 essay, Levin portrayed Taylor as a monstrous fiend—a woman still capable of bringing survivors of her former crimes to tears years after she had been dead. Levin posits that Taylor stole babies and poisoned a middle-aged mother under her care while terrorizing her children.
Here's Levin's Slate essay:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html
3
What a beautiful expensive coat! Your tax dollars at work!
3
I put the debasement of our country on Ronald Reagan. Furthered by Dick Cheney, but it began in 1980.
10
It goes to show that what politicians say on the campaign trail (Reagan) cannot be taken as fact. They always say there are three sides to every story...yours, theirs and the truth. Yet Reagan (or an aide that gave him a "talking point") stirred up the public and made it seem as this was the norm. It's a sad story and goes to show how awful racism really is.
2
You look at Ms. Taylor's poor upbringing, unloved, uneducated, and it is pretty easy to see how she knew of no other way to exist than by criminal means. But when I compare her cheating misdeeds to the massive 40-plus years of tax fraud committed by Donald Trump, I feel sorry for her.
9
@JD I wasn't aware that Mr. Trump had been convicted of tax fraud. I'd love to read the proof of that. Can you please provide a reference to the prosecution?
2
@RJ Nor has Donald Trump been convicted of Campaign Finance fraud for paying about a quarter million dollars in hush money to two porn stars. Therefore you don't believe it? If not, then you are very likely an ardent Trump fan who is self-delusional, and I am wasting my time.
How did her fraud gains go from $150,000 to $9,000? The answer is the original number was completely embellished for politicians to enrage the public into voting for them.
The real story here is her awful family and the fact that her seemingly traumatic and unloved childhood embedded low self worth into this woman's emotional being.
3
The rose tinted glasses we look through back at Reagan’s presidency is always bothersome to me. And the same goes with Bush senior. Both never had problems playing the race card when it suited their purposes.
11
Great article. The Medicare thieves advertise brazenly on TV. People stealing from the government all the time.
2
All over the world where there is a social safety net,
Denmark, Sweden, Holland, USA, Canada, etc.
some much more comprehensive than in America,
people who work hard and pay a significant
amount of taxes, taxpayers do have a concern as to where
that tax money is going. Regardless of the political system
and Party in power.
That is fact. People are concerned as to where their tax revenues are going. Especially for people who work hard to pay their own taxes.
Is that a legitimate concern for taxpayers?
5
Like so much of life, the truth is rarely easy to understand. For this reason, we use stereotypes to understand the world. But, due to stereotypes, we get Reagans, Bushes, and Trumps who ruin the world. Thank you for this article and book.
13
Thank you for writing this article and allowing us to understand how people can become defined by their circumstances and then punished later simply because of their history. Great article.
5
Great biography. As told, cause and effect couldn't be viewed more clearly.
6
Whenever social ills come to a head, we look low rather than high. This is the American way.
The "welfare queen" myth is a vile way for the moneyed interests that control our government to deflect responsibility for the poor. These ruling elites are responsible for the horrible schools in poor neighborhoods, regressive tax systems which burden the poor, crime, lack of opportunity, covert discrimination (redlining by ZIP code), and overt discrimination (miscegnation laws).
Through these convenient failures of policy, the ruling elites have created the self-perpetuating underclass needed to sustain their excesses.
Welfare is appeasement to the poor; a token offering to prevent the sharpening of pitchforks. It empowers no one. It merely stimulates aggregate demand, and keeps money flowing up the pyramid to the rich.
Rather than scapegoating the "welfare queens" who dare to step out of line with their predestined cycle of poverty, let us hold the big pharma drug price gougers to account. Or the real estate tax evaders. The finance sector. What do we gain from prosecuting the powerless?
13
If I were using SNAP, I I could feed a family of four with a single lobster tail: slice it thin, stir-fry it with assorted vegetables, and serve over rice.
7
This fraud is not limited to Welfare. I have heard from those who provide income tax filing service that clients drive up in late model cars and wearing designer clothes to report very low income that triggers subsidy "rebates."
11
And tax fraud isn’t just limited to the poor. In fact, it is likely more rampant with the wealthy. Just that they can afford accountants who can better hide it and/or keep them just on the right side of the law - or count on the fact that today’s IRS doesn’t have the resources to investigate them.
4
@DKSF So that makes it OK then when the poor do it?
@DKSF: The people mentioned to me my the tax form preparers were far from poor. They were people who quite obviously, from their spending habits, have plenty of cash gained from off-the-books enterprises some of which likely are lllegal. One would wish for more IRS scrutiny to be fair to the rest of us who declare our income.
And Rick Scott was the chief executive of Columbia HCA in the late 90s when it was caught defrauding multiple federal programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. Company was fined 1.7 billion, and Scott was rewarded by being elected Gov. of FL and now US Senator.
Our moral outrage is so selective.
54
Tell it like it is, Mary! Thanks for this poignant reminder.
6
@Mary Want more on Rick Scott ? Watch his pathetic interview on the NPR News Hour on May 16. Dancing around the question of how he would vote against disaster funds for his own State -- rather than offend Trump over Puerto Rico relief.
4
Reading elsewhere on these pages, the EPA is trying to recoup the $124,000 in “travel expenses” Scott Pruitt stole from the government.
We know who the real thieves are, (hint, not on welfare).
891
@Corbin Her $40,000 in 1970 is the equivalent of over $260,000 today, twice as much as Mr. Pruitt allegedly stole; so yes, we do see who the real thieves are and in this case, at least, they are on welfare.
3
@Corbin So, apparently that means that welfare fraud is OK then, huh?
3
@mikecody
She did not steal $40K in 1970. Over the course of many years she "stole" that much.
Its right there in the article. That is only a lot of money if you are poor. if you are in the real middle class not actually poor like most Americans who think they are middle class are, that is a fair amount but not significant. It's what you'd have to make to actually be middle class.
34
The GOP demonizes poor people and the struggles they go through to survive which may at times fall into the 'welfare fraud' catagory. But they will elect a person Governor and Senator who perpetrated the largest Medicare/Medicaid fraud in our history at that time, Rick Scott.
26
"When Taylor changed identities, she wasn’t deviously leveraging race to her advantage. She defied America’s strict racial categories to secure a life she couldn’t otherwise grasp, and to construct a private mythology that made more sense to her than the grim reality of what she’d seen and what she’d done."
No, sounds like she was just a regular old charlatan and a crook, albeit with an unfortunate background/upbringing.
6
The politicians like Ronald Reagan lied about her as much as she lied about herself.
13
Don't we all just love our poster people. They make selling our righteous causes so simple.
The welfare cheat is a classic example of scapegoating, but who are we really angry at? The poor who are living off our hard earned wages? Or the rich who do the same? Since we would like to be the latter we turn on the former. It has ever been thus.
Reagan and the super rich would like those of us who will never get there to fight among ourselves. That way, nothing will ever change, business as usual will prevail, and we will end up exactly where we are today - fractured, angry, and shouting at all the wrong people.
23
Astute comment.
The majority is being ripped off by the wealthy minority, in a death by a thousand cuts.
How you say?
Your rent, or mortgage payments, your phone and cable bills, food and daily necessities at the store. Your car payments, and bank fees, credit card fees, and interest charges.
Everything you pay for is essentially overpriced. Sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot.
And that is how big corporate and big banks keep raking in the millions and billions, making corporate chieftains rich and shareholders wealthy.
6
Demonizing the poor is blood sport for the GOP and no better way to do so than apply anecdotal evidence in the person of a grifter while intimating that such behavior is pandemic.
It’s a time tested way to distract the public from the corporate welfare games that rob the treasury of billions, erode the nations infrastructure, and rob public education of the resources required to help eliminate poverty.
451
@JPLA "Demonizing the poor is blood sport for the GOP and no better way to do so than apply anecdotal evidence in the person of a grifter while intimating that such behavior is pandemic."
Great line.
41
Agreed. They use the same myths around voter fraud to advance their agenda. The age of Fox and social media makes these myths more infectious than ever
34
So Reagan was correct. And has anything changed?
4
@Rich Murphy
No republican has ever been correct since Lincoln died.
3
I owned a few apartments in my home town which is mixed race and these days not in the best economic situation. My best tenet was a black women and the only three people I had to throw out were white. Good and bad people come in all colors and the reality is is that working and lower income people of all colors should be supporting each other rather than tearing each other down.
22
I can hear the Hollywood ( independent) producers just around the corner...
3
Hope so!
1
what a fascinating profile of a very complex, tragic figure.
8
Great bit of history. Thanks.
6
The “welfare queen” was not the only racist meme generated by Reagan, but it became deeply embedded in the psyche of American bigots as a justifiable reason to hate the government for enabling grifters and cons.
Ironically, these same people look upon perhaps the greatest grifter of all time Donald Trump, with an almost religious zeal.
23
@Mojoman49
reagan is still the biggest grifter, He destroyed the best government humanity had ever created and got himself and a lot of already rich people richer by that crime.
4
To everyone whos comments mention that welfare cheating is still prevalent today:
Don't you realize that this is what the 1% and corporations want?
Turn the poor amongst themselves and let them fight over the table scraps while the rich and powerful keep gorging at the trough....
Best misdirection game in town and apparently still works. You all should be outraged at the corporate welfare state that is widening the gulf between the wealthy and regular folk. I'm sure the dollar figures are much more shocking than Ms. Queen's. Just wait till there aren't any scraps to go around!
10
What strikes me most about this story is the cruelty exhibited by so many people: her relatives, the people living in the Deep South who perpetrated these evil laws, the people in California who exploited her while she was still young, Regean and his campaign who exploited her for a different reason and, finally millions of voters who reveled in their indignation and self righteousness over her crimes, real and alleged, without ever caring enough to learn about the truth. The vast majority of people who castigated her knew that the welfare cheat trope was way over done, but it feels good to throw stones at those we deem lesser people than ourselves. Yet in the end it is basic cruelty that makes it all possible.
12
"It feels good to throw stones at those we deem lesser than ourselves."
You nailed it. Scapegoating is a common racist tactic in the US today.
"Linda Taylor was inarguably a villain. She had no regard for other people, and she preyed on most everyone she met, including her own children. It doesn’t excuse her crimes to acknowledge that she was also a victim..."
Actually I think it does excuse it. When you spend your entire life being treated as a crime and illegitimate human - even by your own mother - what other choices will a person believe they have in life? Any crimes she committed against individual people are certainly regrettable but gaming a government system that is responsible for the negative expectations and status she suffered her entire life seems to me to be a victimless crime - except for the people that were further stereotyped due to Linda Taylors acts of survival. The only other options that probably seemed open to her were death and almost all of us will choose survival over death.
The whole situation is a tragedy. The real criminals here are American racism and Ronald Reagan.
11
And now we have a criminal family in the White House who have swindled millions from taxpayers, contractors, etc.
And continue to do so thanks to a complacent and complicit Republican Party.
Trump doesn't want anyone to see his tax returns because he knows people will see how he cheated on his taxes, like his father. His son-in-law's father already served time in jail for doing it.
15
I would argue that we are all born essentially good people. If I child has the misfortune of being unwanted, abused, neglected, resentment will build as a defense mechanism. Undesirable traits, like racism, xenophobia, lack of compassion are also taught or learned by example.
I see Ms. Taylor as a victim. Were she born in a socially-acceptable loving home, she would have been a much different person.
12
Negative and incorrect myths certainly live on in this country. That this myth is perpetuated is mind boggling. It shows our ignorance.
7
Trump's father was the real "welfare queen", given the support that he received to monopolize housing and exclude people he though "undesirable".
7
This is a fascinating story and it reveals the nuance of human history. And nuance is much needed to understand the sociological impacts of social welfare payments and assistance. I have seen how it erodes personal agency and encourages dependency. And I have seen plenty of abuses whereby recipients find money for luxury goods but fail to prioritize more basic familial needs...(True Religion jeans, moncler shirts, and expensive gifts for the kids that are broken and discarded in days...but the kids show up to school erratically or not at all). The progressive left doesn't want to believe that this reality exists. It does.
1
“Linda Taylor was inarguably a villain.” I disagree. She was a tortured soul thanks to all the white people who abused her throughout her life. Obviously, she did a lot of things that were wrong. But she tried to survive just like all of us do. Thank you for sharing her sad story and setting the record straight about her “welfare queen” notoriety.
6
It is a tragedy that people are compelled to a life of violations and sometimes crime to fend themselves but greater tragedy is the people whose value system begins and ends at smooth talking and that trait alone earns them constitutional right to determine the destiny of millions with a stroke of pen.
4
I had read Ms. Taylor's story years ago and was astounded that what she was most known for was welfare fraud, arguably the least of her crimes.
5
Let me try this.
Ms Taylor was not the model for reagan's welfare queen.
reagan had been talking about welfare queens and fraud since the 60's and never, not once did he provide any evidence of it.
This is the same thing he did with his allegations of government incompetence.
The arrest of Ms Taylor was accidental kismet for reagan who jumped on the story as if he had investigated and arrested her himself. That was so effective the journalist who wrote this piece seem to be unaware of the facts.
keep that in mind when thinking and talking about El Trumpo and the ridiculous things he says. Reporters laid off reagan's obvious lies when they should have been grilling him like a murder suspect because they could not imagine people would be taken in. Look what happened.
4
@magicisnotreal
I forgot to point out that when reagan was talking about welfare queens it was nakedly and openly racist. No whistles of any kind involved.
He was saying that all black people who get welfare are ripping us off. he didn't even have a "good people on both sides" side to him.
2
This story reads like a subplot to Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Poverty doesn't leave you a plethora of choices, as more lucky people often say.
5
Wow...
Can’t wait to read the book. She sounds like an ahead-of-her-time proto-feminist Frank Abagnale with a touch of the classic self-serving America outlaw who, unlike Abagnale, never ended up with a consulting gig with law enforcement.
When is the Spielberg or better yet, Ava DuVernay, movie coming out?
Don’t let some form of lame”respectability politics” stand in the way of telling a great story.
1
This article is shameful. Ronald Reagan was a good and decent man, as well as one of our greatest presidents. Read any biography of Reagan. If you can, read them all. The man never saw color in his life, from the day he was born to the day he died. Yet some people seek to slander his character for political purposes. Is there any decency left in this world?
6
Many comments state: what about the rich cheats? It doesn't matter: cheats are cheats regardless of their wealth. Cheating should be punished.
6
@gricheso
Exactly our point. Why aren’t the rich punished? If one rich person commits tax fraud, why don’t we demonize them all? Double standards do not make justice.
3
>>> ". . . cheats are cheats regardless of their wealth."
Some people -- many, many people -- just don't get it.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
~Anatole France
2
Josh,
You are mistaken in the premise that Ms. Taylor was the model for reagan's "welfare queen".
reagan made claims about massive welfare fraud for years and never provided any proof. This is teh same thing he did when he vilified our government, made allegations but never had any proof and no reporter could find any proof of the problems he claimed were real.
Ms Taylor was an accidental windfall for reagan who took her bust which he had no knowledge of before it hit the press. and said "SEE!" I was right. No one bothered to point out or make clear and stick to the fact that he never mentioned her and never provided any [proof of his allegations. That was the only "proof" of the lies he told about poor people and our government until just about a year after he took office and one of his appointees had held a press conference about an agency that had made a bonehead move. This was the proof of the government incompetence he had been talking about but no one could find proof of since 1960's. Turns out the bonehead move was forced by the reagan head appointee who had created new rules for how the agency operated that forced the staff to do that thing they were using as proof of their incompetence.
People like Ms Taylor are common and the people who run our society know this and how to use their psychological scars to control and hold them down. If you look at how things run you will see that inflicting and exploiting those scars is the main function of the 1% "leadership".
2
I remember this whole story and the depiction of "ghetto queens" very clearly. Reagan took this story to a whole new level just like Trump does with "bad hombres" from Mexico. The racist in every GOPer is re-kindled when such stories are brought up and they are motivated to vote. Thank you for doing a little searching about Taylor and relating her back-ground. It is the sad under belly of the American dream filled with racism and deception. That Taylor did what she had to do to survive is never told and yes she did what she had to do to live.
This brings me to the most important lesson that many of us have not learnt specially the racist amongst us. So what if Taylor robbed $40,000 or even $150,000 from the Food Stamp program? It is trivial compared to the 100s or billions "stolen" by bankers and real estate folks during 2007 financial debacle. Yet not a single "real-estate or banker king" was ever punished for it. More over everyone was bailed out by the tax payer and we all moved on as if nothing happened. GOP is still trying these same tactics with Trump and it looks like it is working just right!
8
Anyone who thinks this story is ancient or unique should think again. The ripple effects of racism, intergenerational child abuse and neglect and the economics of a system that includes a population regularly included as excess labor contribute to stories like this. Thievery, drug trafficking, robbery, and hustling are survival options for persons warped emotionally as well as cognitively injured by such childhoods. What’s remarkable is that a majority who experience such childhoods are resilient but not because of any special comforting attentions of others or societal efforts.
167
Welfare queens and kings do exist. Our safety net has been expanded to a massive level without any oversight. We have a huge underground economy with many people working off the books, not reporting income. The ACA made this worse by allowing medicaid for people under 65 without asset verification, so we do have lots of people with accumulated assets getting free healthcare.
Not to say that we do not need welfare. But no punishment is too severe for people who obtain it fraudulently. I also believe that anyone taking a handout needs to be somewhat beholden to the hand that feeds them. Not to dehumanize them, but just to behave. Welfare? No cigarettes, no alcohol, no crime.
4
@Ny Surgeon
Would you make the same restrictions apply to the idle rich, who cause so much havoc in our society?
5
@Corbin
please explain how a rich person has effected you?
@Corbin Uh, because MY TAX $$$ aren't paying for their "havoc".
I would be interested in reading a piece that includes the dollars and cents involved in benefits and cash assistance to the poor, not generalities, but the hard cash amounts poor people are trying to live on.
First, what financial conditions drive a person to request SNAP (food stamps) benefits, including how many working poor receive SNAP? How much funding do needy people actually get on SNAP? How does one qualify for cash assistance, and what is the average benefit? How much does the average recipient of Social Security disability or retirement actually receive? Then, what standard of living can be maintained on all of these resources? These questions encompass several categories of poverty; a profile on one person would not adequately reveal the truth.
I would be interested in seeing these FACTS in print. I believe that the general public has the idea that poor recipients receiving benefits are living high on the hog. I believe the facts would tell a much more dire tale.
6
In 1972 a Florida judge gave my disabled white mother custody of her three children and $290 per month to support them. Even in 1972, you couldn't really live on $290 per month. My mother moved us to a small town in South Carolina called Johnston, where her mother lived. Our great-grandmother there had been a scion of the local Baptist Church, but her great-grandchildren were mocked and ostracized because we were poor, because we went to the public school, and because we used food stamps of $50 per month--all that my mother could qualify for. My mother was also attacked on a personal level for being a divorcee and any time she dated, she was accused of prostituting herself. Ignorance knows no bounds and poverty is the ultimate sin in America. The story of Linda Taylor is an excellent argument for abortion. Unwanted children face enormous, sometimes insurmountable difficulties as a result of societal attitudes. The same society that claims life is sacred from conception has no problem with stripping that life of self-worth and the means to survive outside the womb.
17
Easy and convenient to use labels like Welfare Queen in order to create divisions and political gain. Infinitely easier and socially acceptable to commit tax evasion and fraud for decades without the recourse most people face. Since 2008, especially the past two years have been revelations regarding the blatant disregard for laws, ethics and morals related to finance no one enforces on some of the wealthy and politically connected. It is the Papa Doc mindset that is getting progressively worse at the expense of the overall health of this country. What was a cancer evolved into Ebola with the present Administration.
7
Excellent article!
I have some modern observations. All anecdotal but true.
White progressive buying organic goat's milk soap and grass fed venison at farmers markets with food stamps.
People hiring care takers, trades, etc. off the books. The workers in turn pay no taxes and collect subsidies.
Fake disabilities.
I think we can all agree these types of fraud are not THAT rare. Certainly comparable to the fraud of the wealthy and well to do. And, that it hurts those who need help the most. My hunch is that eliminating fraud will increase generosity of the honest. Anyone have any ideas?
5
@B
I'm a white progressive. There's no fraud when I buy at the farmer's market with my food stamps. In fact, they match dollars for low income folks such as myself.
And do you really think the fraud of billionaires outweighs the penny ante desperation of the almost-poor?
What's your economic situation "B"? What's your annual income, please tell us.
2
@B
If we are looking strictly at dollar amounts, the rich are stealing trillions vs pennies. Priorities people!
1
@B
if you cannot specifically name a case you are talking about a theory which in your post sounds like a reagan fantasy.
It is false logic you have used here.
The successful propagation of anecdote as data is one of the most serious problems our society faces.
18
In the 90's, I had a tenant, a relative of a friend, that moved to the East coast from Berkley, CA. College educated and from a middle-class background, she insisted on living the life of a welfare queen and ripping off "The Man", including myself, as her landlord. She worked very hard at being poor, to qualify for benefits she did not deserve. It was a strange way to waste your life.
7
Aristotle wrote that heightened drama is tragedy. But that heightened tragedy is comedy.
I'm reading the sad tragedy of this woman's life; the isolation, the desperation, and the crimes she pursued and then embraced.
And I'm conflicted.
I still remember "Welfare Queen" as a woman's wrestling character on TV, recently resurrected in an HBO series. Another female character "Home-Wrecker", dressed in bizarre outfits comes to mind.
These characters and their kitsch (or camp, whatever it is), is still somehow funny to me. There's a sense of outlandish nostalgia.
Reagan, like Trump, can vilify people because these caricatures of real people are cartoon expressions waiting to be voiced. All that's missing is a cutesy nick name for the thing.
In comedy, no one gets hurt. In real life, not so much.
4
Something important about the nature of racism is revealed by focus reported here on Taylor's "ability to pass" for as black, Spanish, Filipino, or white. A person's skill at disguises might be a concern for law-enforcement investigation, but in Taylor's story it rises to the level of guilt. Objectively and ethically there is absolutely nothing wrong in having an appearance that is hard to classify, but the focus on that question regarding Taylor makes clear a deep anxiety over not being able to identify a person's race. In a racist world, you need to be able to see a person's race to know how to treat them, and perhaps more importantly, to know how to feel and think about yourself in relation to that person.
14
In my experience, the single unifying theme used by the average GOP voter is exactly this issue.
The folks I have spoken to about why they vote for the GOP candidate always state the same old trope- welfare abuse
( generally by minorities). They feel robbed and get infuriated to think people can stay home and collect welfare while they have to go to work everyday.
It seems they think abuse and fraud is widespread even though there is no evidence to back that up.
I think there is probably some fraud but not for the majority of welfare recipients.
If these voters would bother to think it through, they would easily see that their antipathy should be directed at corporate welfare, legal tax evasion by huge, profitable corporations, illegal tax evasion by so many, money laundering, cash businesses who do not report their total income and businesses like Walmart who pay such low wages that their workers are forced to apply for assistance- thus forcing taxpayers to subsidize Walmart.
These are the people who are responsible for billions of lost tax money and lawmakers are complicit to cover for the rich and powerful.
They also starve the IRS funding to ensure their rich donors do not get caught.
The system is rigged to reward cheating and greed for the rich and powerful people and corporations.
It seems it is much easier for people to demonize poor minorities- it doesn't take much more than a racist bent and a narrow view of the world.
38
So much anger is often directed at the poor, for getting assistance with with housing costs, food, and healthcare, that other people, who make slightly more money, don’t get. There is so much anger at them, because people with slightly more money have just as much trouble paying for these things. The solution needs to be a larger safety net.
I also think it is very interesting that there is a purported opposition to assistance with paying for contraception, and an opposition to abortion, which suggests that being sexually active should not be an option, and sexuality — even among the married — is somehow morally corrupt. The poor should be celebrate for life. And if they do have children, they should give them up for adoption to the wealthy in society. Apparently, even if they are far past the infant stage. (Never mind that not everyone is tripping over themselves to adopt some of these children.)
12
It's really important to have compassion for everyone. That's why these stories are so important. it must be exhausting reconstructing people lives decades ago- but it's worth it.
18
The entire system of working wages, taxes, and welfare are so askew and discombobulated that incentives to work are barely there. The whole system needs to be dumped and re-booted from the ground up. In my opinion, there are people who would loathe to ever use welfare and would not even if if they were eligible - many of the working poor who need a living wage. Conversely, there are those who have grown up only knowing welfare and expecting it. Why work, and why work hard when Uncle Sam pays you when you don’t? These people need an incentive - perhaps better wages earned while working and take away the welfare trust fund. To implement this, government will need to lessen taxes on businesses both small and large and set higher minimum wages. And healthcare is a whole other issue. And I hope someone smarter than me can figure this out.
3
@M It's a myth that people need incentivizing to work rather than collect welfare. The funds given are meager and expire. Living on welfare isn't living.
Ever notice how no one worries about the heirs of America's wealthy - the Waltons for example - living off the family trust laying around wasting their God-given talents? If anyone would kick back and take it easy it would be folks like them, right? Nope.
Surveys' show that the recipients of inherited wealthy overwhelmingly pursue meaningful careers. When an economy is truly growing (not like the fakery we're seeing celebrated now) welfare and unemployment shrinks. It's almost as if dignity and self-worth through doing something meaningful are inherently human regardless of race or socio-economic background.
A Universal Basic Income, where all citizens are like the Walton heirs and enjoy some modicum of security and safety in a vicious corporate-kleptocratic economy, all based on their birthright as a citizen of the U.S.A. must happen.
Artificial Intelligence and robotics are going to put a lot of folks commenting here out of traditional work in all fields including white collar.
When white folks die from drug overdoses it's called a healthcare crisis. When black folks die it calls for a war on drugs. I suppose when even more white folks need the social safety net (white people already consume more benefits than all other groups) we'll see a change.
7
@M When you say "these people" we KNOW that you mean "non-white people" because you "have grown up only knowing" racist viewpoints, which are that non-whites are lazy and greedy, such that even when facts disprove your bias you're still "expecting it."
You imply that poor whites "would not even [use welfare] if they were eligible." In fact, whites are the largest recipients of welfare in the US.
Then you go on to parrot GOP talking points: "lower taxes on businesses both small and large" -- how much lower than $0 can you go for major corporations? Take a look at what Amazon, Delta, etc. paid in taxes: less than you!
There are lots of people smarter than you who are trying to fix this. Please let them do their work. Please research before you parrot coded racist talking points.
The irony that you're writing from Kansas is just unreal... you live in a state where the policies you're touting have failed miserably. Kansas is the nationwide model of how NOT to run one's state.
Excellent research by the author and reminds me of my own painstaking research on backgrounds of OAS terrorists--interviewed over 100--and watch my videos.I like and admire those who in a sense bring back to life those otherwise would have been entirely forgotten by history. Good job by Mr. Levin.
7
The comments in this article demonstrate that we haven't made much progress since Reagan. That so many, mostly men, are capable of such a lack of compassion towards a woman who received no love growing up, and who had every disadvantage thrown at her is a sad story in itself.
33
Whatever you may think of people who scam the welfare system, it pales in comparison to the millions of dollars scammed by the many very wealthy people through tax loopholes. There are many benefits that accrue to relatively affluent people, such as the mortgage interest deduction. That's a government give-away if ever there was one. Why are we so focused on every penny the poor get from the government - whether scammed or honest -- and fail to be so incensed by the freebies received by relatively affluent Americans, at the expense of taxpayers?
81
@Syliva
mortgage interest deduction is not a giveaway it is incentive for home buying and building and it works.
8
@Syliva Why would you pick the mortgage interest deduction as a major benefit for affluent people when the folks that benefit from it most are actually middle class? Indeed, it isn't even really a factor after the Republican Tax plan went into effect this year due to the limits placed on the deduction amounts. A better example would have been the 15% capital gains tax that truly rich folks pay on investment income rather than the 22-25% rate that middle class folks pay on wages they earn working.
1
@magicisnotreal...all it does is make houses more expensive.
1
What an exceptional villain. Every generation in America (and I suspect many other countries) has stores like these, but America has more ability to find and share bizarre stories... plus I don’t live in other countries and don’t speak other languages....
Still, it’s obvious she’s way, way outside any sense of normal.
America, the best and worst of everything. Are you not entertained!
16
“Exceptional villain”??? You can take that label and turn it on those who truly deserve it, like Donald J. “Conman” Trump.
You have documented the basis for her contempt for authority, but have not proved that was a valid excuse for exploiting the system. So she ended up stealing only $40,000.00? Only $40,000.00! But what about the template she set and the skills she demonstrated to others, not just African American but Caucasian as well. Stereotypes exist for a reason. Not everyone has the time or ability to examine them as you did. But it's not as if she didn't exist or never stole.
40
@Richard McLaughlin
It’s stated in the article that 9,000 dollars was obtained illegally of the 40K she received.
64
@Richard McLaughlin
The author wrote that her background didn't excuse her crimes, but might explain the absence of a moral code in her.
105
@farhorizons
Exactly. The article doesn't offer the "proof" that Mr. McLaughlin demands because it actually makes the opposite argument.
18
"This is no evidence that people who get food stamps eat a disproportionate amount of lobster" says the author. There is no evidence that they DON'T. And while I doubt that is true, there IS lots of evidence that they stock up on junk food. That their kids are malnourished and/or obese. That they trade food stamps for drugs and alcohol. My family owns low income housing. The lengths our tenants go to to scam the government for more and more money are astounding and tactically brilliant. I firmly believe some of these folks could be top entrepreneurs and business people if they put their considerable creativity toward good. However, we have created a system which rewards those who behave badly, starting by having children out of wedlock. Children they cannot afford. And it's all downhill from there, most notably and acutely for the children.
48
@K Edwards - "My family owns low income housing."
It sounds like you are part of the problem and helping perpetuating the circumstances of these people's lives.
52
@K Edwards
And here is the enduring impact of the myth. @K Edwards, the author writes of the crimes she was linked to that are far worse than what she was convicted of, and asks us to wonder why is that? Why was she ignored in disappearances and deaths all around her? Why do we cling to this slice of her story, which is exaggerated, particularly in comparison to the question of far more heinous crimes. Perhaps you are missing the question posed?
19
@Marie How is K Edwards "part of the problem" by providing low income housing? People with low incomes need options to house themselves. How would K Edwards be helping by refusing to rent at reasonable prices? Do you think it would be better if he / she only rented to rich people?
32
The 'welfare queen' moniker is neither racist, nor a myth. It is about welfare recipients of any race. Welfare very much favors mothers, and single mothers in particular. It includes housing, direct payments, food stamps, utility assistance, medicaid, and refundable tax credits worth thousands per child per year in addition to assistance received during the year. I personally know a single young woman, now on her third child by two fathers, who got a tax refund pushing $10,000 when she barely held a part time job for two weeks during the year. It has become the equivalent of an entry level career for a girl in poverty. A blank check to engage in idiocy. Her housing and (relative) financial stability makes her a magnet for unproductive miscreants seeking a place to stay, etc., while also empowering her make increasingly poor decisions, most importantly, poor decisions about family planning, and parenting. Drug culture is entwined in public assistance culture. Many are themselves recipients of disability SSI for their own 'mental health' problems. These women lack the financial, educational, emotional, or marital preparation to be parents, yet the government basically pays them to engage in a disaster. It's not a 'charitable' endeavor at all. It is contributing to a subculture, removed from normal economics, in which drugs, violence, ignorance, and neglect can flourish and grow.
97
@David But what leads to this? Lack of a decent education, access to jobs, neighborhoods where there is a sense of community, decent housing, exposure to lead and other environmental contamination. The list goes on and on, but it all comes down to a lack of an equitable distribution of the fruits of society. Yes, there will always be lazy people, or people addicted to some substance. But those numbers can be much lower as the European countries show us. It comes down to a society premised on love, and not fear and hate.
70
Demonizing women and children who receive social benefits is self-defeating. The "welfare" recipients conform to the system, they certainly didn't create it. The system could be reformed, but doing do is opposed by conservatives, who just want to cut expenditures so they can get more tax cuts. Cutting social benefits just perpetuates the cycle of poverty. But you already knew that.
65
@David I’d be curious to learn if this commenter is pro-life or pro-choice? If a vulnerable young woman, like the one he described in his comments, is legally denied access to an abortion for a first unwanted pregnancy but is legally given food stamps and other financial assistance, would that make her more or less likely to have a second unwanted pregnancy? Or a third?
51
Our country's journey to Trumpworld began with Nixon's southern strategy, but the racism was embedded in the DNA of the Republican party when Reagan began the dog-whistling that won conservatives over to the dark side.
The foreshadowing began before the rise of Reagan, in Chicago, when Martin Luther King visited and endured some ugly and dangerous counterprotests from "aggreived" white blue collar voters. Reagan skillfully and successfully summoned these ghosts when he later campaigned in northern cities and suburbs. His audience remembered King's northern visits. Not by accident did Reagan begin his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the 1964 slaying of three civil rights voter registration workers. His voice there was the perfect (white) counterpart to Dr. King's in Chicago.
We may hope that the Reagan myth revsion, long overdue, will continue apace.
19
In many ways she was the original Donald Trump.
The difference is I can forgive her.
36
@priceofcivilization
Don't forget she became famous with Saint Ronnie.
HE was our first Donald Trump but with a genial nature that hid his racism and greed.
3
We know there are a lot more good people on welfare than thieves. But make no mistake, each thief on the welfare rolls is worth a hundred decent people trying to get on their feet. It's an awful thing to give charity to people and then to find out that it is being stolen, that giving what you worked hard for is being used by people who treat you like a sucker.
Whatever our race, whatever our political leanings, we should be diligent in making sure this system is not abused. There are people who steal from this system. There are a lot of people who know someone who does it, and it hurts to know that you work hard while someone else is skating by without the effort you put into your job. If we can make people confident that welfare does a good job being policed and only being used for people who need it, it becomes a lot more sensible to everyone. We have a serious lack of faith in the government. It's important to get that trust back, and to prove that our faith there is worthwhile.
96
I would add that your argument applies as well to “corporate welfare” - industries and businesses that get tax breaks, credits, subsidized royalties, and other incentives, all while paying their top executives obscene salaries and bonuses.
126
@Chris Hinricher
If you had a clue you would rethink your sentiments.
The humiliations one has to go through to get helpo from any State or Fed agency you would realize that the very few people who "scam" the system are actually deserving of help but for reasons other than the fake ones they are giving.
The psychological damage our society inflicts on the poor just by how it is constructed and the myths that are perpetrated by the upper classes upon us keeps most of them down generation after generation. Showing true compassion like not expecting anything from a person you are helping. That expectation is in itself one of the social abuses that holds the poor down. Expecting something for the help is not help it is pretty much a forced and humiliating exchange where the person is being given a pittance under monitoring and told they also have to behave in certain ways as well. It is the main tool by which the poor are kept poor and then blamed for it.
Those in the upper classes know this. It is the main reason most people never rise up generation after generation and they make sure it stays so. It has always been thus throughout history.
62
@Chris Hinricher But is welfare really charity? Poor people can attribute their poverty to government mismanagement. The government is responsible for horrible schools in poor neighborhoods, regressive tax systems which burden the poor, crime, lack of opportunity, covert discrimination (redlining by ZIP code), and overt discrimination (miscegnation laws). Given these adverse conditions, our poor are entitled to every scrap kicked down through entitlement programs without it being characterized as "charity" or even "help".
If our government were in the business of charity, they would be solving the aforementioned problems rather than spending trillions on prisons or "defense". Welfare only exists to appease and perpetuate the underclass our ruling elites need to make capitalism work (and not be guillotined).
The excesses of welfare abusers are a drop in the bucket compared to the excesses of the untouchable, powerful ruling elite. We can better restore trust in government by first holding moneyed interests to account, rather than policing our most vulnerable.
79
“Taylor’s aunt would testify that her niece ‘didn’t go to no school I went to.’ Taylor’s older sister Mary Jane, who had two white parents, did have the opportunity to spend time in a classroom.” But apparently not much, and not very fruitfully.
This is also a story of turning one disadvantaged person against another. That’s the shame (Republicans might say brilliance) of Reagan’s welfare queen campaign: it agitated one poorly educated and gullible population against another. And that has been the playbook for the GOP since 1980. As we heard in 2016, Donald Trump loves the poorly educated, because they don’t see through his lies to find the grifter who is far worse than Linda Taylor ever was.
47
The Republican party has perfected the use of propaganda, foul propaganda, for many years. Starting with Nixon's Southern strategy, to Reagen's welfare queen all the way to Trump. With the growth of Fox so-called News we have a well financed propaganda machine. Truth is not important; only the continued domination of this country by the mostly white one percent.
29
Ronald Reagan successfully inflated the welfare fraud fantasy with his cry of the welfare queen driving to pick up her checks in a Cadillac. He entered the White House in 1981 partially as a result of this racist strategy. During his Presidency, Bill Clinton, frightened as ever of Republican attacks, stole many policy ideas from Republicans and championed them to provide cover for his own campaigns. "Ending Welfare as We Know It" was one of those pre-emptive strikes.
In 1988, George H.W. Bush gave us Willie Horton during his campaign. This bogus racist echo of the Welfare Queen helped his Presidential bid immensely. Strangely enough, one can certainly accuse Bill Clinton of stealing that thunder as well, by supporting and signing the Crime Bill while he was President. Biden and many other Democrats drove that bus at full speed as well.
While one should never underestimate the uninformed, lazy American voter, it still is shocking that these racist ploys succeed as well as they do.
I was in my twenties during the 1970's, and I didn't know the "Welfare Queen" was fabricated on the back of an actual person. My thanks to Josh Levin for giving me a more full understanding.
35
Forgotten and rejected by family and society, what did we expect from her? It is as if we should expect the truth...as told by a 'Donald J. Trump'...when honesty was nowhere to be had.
10
Meanwhile, today, people who swindle the government out of millions of dollars get elected governor of Florida. I guess it's different if you don't have to hide your race to do it.
66
Amen! Texan Rick Scott’s medical insurance company billed Medicare of millions, So he fled to Florida to become its Republican Governor. We have become a nation of dimwit voters.
4
It is surprising that many commentators appear to believe that endless “welfare” is available to any able-bodied female who has kids but does not want to support them. That has not been the case since 1996. US citizens can collect benefits (Temporary Aid For Needy Families) for a total of five years in their entire lives. If I decided I did not want to work, then had a few kids to collect benefits the government would not support me for the rest of my life. Look it up - unless they are a master criminal there is no way a woman can be a “Welfare Queen”, and this has been the case for years.
17
Yes. The welfare rolls have been down since the Clinton era. Many of these lobster and Cadillac anecdotes are rewarmed and repeated decade after decade.
1
Wow-these comments. (Which seem to be primarily from men).
A child, literally born a crime, unwanted, uneducated left to fend for herself. Traveled across the country to find a place she belonged and engaged in prostitution to support herself. Forced to lie about her identity to avoid criminal penalty for....the actions of her parents before she was conceived.
The system led to her inevitable conclusion that fraud was her only choice. This sounds exactly like the effects of apartheid as described in Trevor Noah’s excellent memoir “Born a Crime”.
I’ve had all the white male moral superiority I can handle.
62
@JAS
Cry me a river - she had a terrible childhood and wasn't 'loved' so let's just excuse her criminality? So, everyone else who wasn't led to the "conclusion" that fraud was their only choice are wrong or just law-abiding moral people?
1
@tbandc Well, I for one cannot get the picture out of my head of her sitting alone in the car during a family gathering, not allowed into the house. If you cannot imagine the harm of growing up like that you suffer from diminished empathy.
2
If the "Cadillac Welfare Queen" stereotype didn't exist, the Republican party would have made one up. Reviewing this, it seems that it did! This woman was a disturbed criminal, possibly a sociopath. The problem was the welfare system did not have an investigative or enforcement branch that worked against such scammers. ( Much like the IRS unable to prosecute fake churches or the top tax-evading billionaires due to lack of federal funding.) So the biggest problem was in the design of the programs, which ignored the inborn human ability to cheat, which is present in all races and economic strata.
7
On the basis of some of my own personal experience, she sounds like a psychopathic person living within a psychopathic society.
The (only) interesting thing about psychopaths is that unfettered by ethics, they really do shape-shift to fit the moral and intellectual chinks, cracks, and voids in their environment for their own maximum "gain". They do what works. In the purest way, the forms they take are a direct cast of the vulnerabilities and blindnesses of their societies. Kind of an inverse cast filling the empty spaces the rest of us don't acknowledge.
8
What a sad story.
4
Interesting. I'm sure the book will provide a broader account of Linda Taylor's life and "crimes". Should be an interesting summer read.
Thank you, Mr. Levin. I have already pre-ordered, The Queen.
6
Did a copyeditor read this? Because I'm really taking issue with the author's misuse of the word "baseless."
"That vicious, baseless caricature demonized some of the nation’s most vulnerable people, laying the groundwork for bipartisan welfare reforms that slashed direct aid to the poor."
The author described in the first paragraph before writing that sentence to describe Linda Taylor's abuses of the resources available to her. There was basis--she committed fraud.
4
@Emily this is the line called baseless: “greedy black woman getting rich off taxpayer money”
If you read the rest of the article, it’s clear Linda never got rich by any criteria, nor was she simply “greedy.” It sounds like, by virtue of our deeply racist country and laws, she was forced into a life of crime and lack of moral compass in order to just survive another day.
1
Many years ago I read David Zucchino's 'The Myth of the Welfare Queen'... The story was of a woman raising her own children as well as grandchildren and living by her wits... Then partnering with a white woman to fight the derelict social welfare system in Philadelphia. I came away with a deep appreciation for how hard these women had to work in order to live on welfare... It's not easy and you'll never get rich doing it... But you're guaranteed shaming from those who don't understand how difficult it is...
226
@bernise lynch
Why wasn't her husband supporting them? Why wasn't he forced to pay child support?
2
@Jonathan Katz
You can't get blood from a stone.
11
I’m 53 and I don’t remember this woman. However I have personally seen many people abuse the welfare system and get away with it. In New York for example, you can get free healthcare (which was better than my paid for healthcare), food stamps, and a litany of other ‘free’ services by gaming the system. And we all pay for it. Don’t kid yourself, the welfare cheat is not an imaginary figure. They’re very real and they’re out there today freeloading on the system. There was recently a case of numerous families in NY and NJ who cheated the system for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So welfare fraud is alive and well. I am more than willing to help my less fortunate neighbors but not when their free government services are better than private services I have to pay for. To say nothing of the bone crushing taxes in a welfare state like NY. Will we never learn?
5
@Mike L
This is called missing the point. This is an absolutely fascinating story, with much to tell us about our past, our present, and the lies we tell ourselves. If your only takeaway is "I don't remember this woman but let me tell you about these other people," why even read the story?
14
I'm your age and I do remember this woman. I also remember Reagan's specific speech in which he mentioned her to dramatic effect. I thought, along with much of the worldwide audience I'm sure, that she sounded perfectly awful. And then the truth came out later. From the time she was a child, her own family, and much of society, did their best to make it impossible for her to survive.
11
@Mike L
Let's also focus on the millions of gov't dollars scammed by even rich people through tax loopholes, evasion, and off-shore accounts. Let's look at government largess to corporations, who then use a large percentage of it to buy-back stocks. Let's even look at how much you want your hard-earned tax payment to fund mortgage interest deductions for homeowners in Greenwich, CT or San Francisco, CA. If you want to pry government dollars out the hands of the greedy or dishonest, don't stop with welfare scammers. If fact, don't start there either.
9
I remember Reagan’s insulting “welfare queen” remarks.
Thanks for setting the record straight.
227
@Norm
He didn't set the record straight. He is repeating the lie that reagan got away with.
Ms Taylor was never part of reagan's racist mantra about welfare queens. He had been saying that without any proof. He used her as proof of what he had been saying for years and it seems that now people are being taught that he was talking about her all along when he wasn't.
5
So you are saying she is actually a heroine to emulated?
2
@Glenn: "Linda Taylor was inarguably a villain." Did you skip that sentence? It's the first one in the last paragraph.
4
@Glenn
No, he is not. Actually read the article.
2
"Linda Taylor herself has been totally forgotten."
Well I guess not anymore after Mr. Levin's book promo op-ed.
Is she worth the book? The critics will decide.
Is she worth the op-ed? While the topic in general warrants serious discussion, personally, I don't think she deserves more than an extended footnote.
1
Thank you. Great story.
5
The true welfare queens in America have names that represent Big Ag Big Pharma Koch industries Monsanto Burlington Northern.
Now and then people need help. I did briefly in the early 70's.
Other welfare queens that we all know involve Martin Marietta, Lockheed and the ever popular Boeing and we should never forget the crowning queen of today Trump and his complete lifestyle.
35
Hype for a book. And ironically the article subverts the author's own interests, since if his subject isn't a notorious, mythic, larger-than-life scam artist and colorful villain, who'll want to read more about her?
"The Gipper" was probably the worst, most damaging president in history. During his " reign" the fairness doctrine was repealed, employment at will was implemented, organized labor was decimated, the now discredited "trickle down" free market theory was set in stone for all politicians to support and genuflect to, and greed was permanently elevated for a vice to a virtue. The cultural damage of his presidency has never been repaired. It's amusing how all of the media has at one time or another lionized what was essentially an evil influence on our country.
44
Don't forget Ronald Reagan's War On Drugs which resulted in the highest incarceration rates for non-violent offenders in the world and spawned an entire industry in the US that now profits from holding people in cages.
1
The fact that the poor are disproportionately obese says a lot about the nutritional choices they make. Food stamps should only cover nutritional sustenance, and yes - should be scrutinized heavily.
5
@Jon Have you had any exposure whatsoever to a truly poor neighborhood? There are no supermarkets in most of them, only bodegas that sell mainly pop and chips and the occasional banana, and food stamps can't be used to travel to a place that sell proper "nutritional sustenance." Low-income America is a nutritional wasteland; check it out some time, if you ever find the courage to do so.
15
@Jon Nutritious food is more expensive and labor-intensive than the cheap calories obtained in processed foods. If we were generous in supplying welfare, had stricter oversight of essentially poisonous products enriching corporations, and better education and provision for cooking (time, facilities, lowered stress), then there would be better health.
Many other countries do this better than we do, with better results in health.
7
@Jon It's called Cheap Carbs. It's what poor people subsist on, especially if they lack land on which to grow their own food. After all, bread and molasses were good enough for the American Woolen Company workers in Lawrence MA a century ago.
2
In 1865 the South lost the civil war but never admitted to their loss. They persisted in a system of Jim Crow and segregation and much worse—lynchings and criminalization for being non white. Most Americans were comfortable with this system which lasts in some quarters to this day. Getting rid of racism and it’s pernicious effects is like controlling an outbreak of a viral disease because it’s never totally gone.
10
Humans are intelligent enough to understand the danger and fallacy of stereotyping. Humans simply want to stereotype because it serves their purposes. The individual is good or evil. The causes for that are buried in their upbringing and the wiring of their brains. At any time the circumstances of their lives can change and change the individual.
We do not blame all dogs because of one vicious dog. Can we not extend that grace to our fellow humans?
10
One can only imagine how harsh her treatment was as a child and how it hardened her heart.
15
Linda Taylor doesn't sound so different than Donald Trump. The difference? Other than being of German decent and being a man, using a wealthy father as a stepping off point Donald's scams worked better, and he became richer so that he couldn't get caught.
25
@Marie, Brilliant analogy. White male privilege will take one far down this flim-flam road. Rest in peace, Linda Taylor.
@Marie Great insight! It requires no courage to demonize the powerless.
1
Back in the 60’s or 70’s, not sure when it came into law, unmarried women with children were awarded welfare. Hence many fathers moved out of the home causing the breakdown in families. Finding fathers of children not living in the home and making them pay for their child’s need for 18 years may help the reunite families or perhaps at least make them think twice about fathering children over and over whom they care nothing about.
2
Part of AFDC was that an “able body” man could not live under the same roof if the family qualified for benefits. The southern Dems added it thus part of male exodus. Despite the 1964 Rights Act, it took a long time and lawsuits to get these black men to get hired and trained.
Pretty depressing all around. Thanks!
2
Our welfare system is so fraught (I hate the modern usage of this year's pet word) that it is hard to blame anyone for taking what advantage of it they can. Wait, let me walk that back (last years pet phrase). I have yet to see a welfare "queen" in a bespoke suit. There, I've finished the trifecta. Those who abuse the system do so for a variety of reasons, and they are often helped along, or even encouraged by the way it is written. This is not a black thing, or a female thing. As a white man, in the South, I saw plenty of white men on welfare for a bad back or knee, who seemed easily capable of carrying a couple of heavy batteries to their boats. Let's not blame the folks who take advantage of a badly written plan. Let's try to improve it in a compassionate and careful way.
229
@otto
- one word change:
Our tax system is so fraught (I hate the modern usage of this year's pet word) that it is hard to blame anyone for taking what advantage of it they can.
On paying no taxes Trump said: "That makes me smart."
9/26/2016 presidential debate
48
@otto - " I saw plenty of white men on welfare for a bad back or knee, who seemed easily capable of carrying a couple of heavy batteries to their boats."
It's the same in New England. There are plenty of people railing at "those people" taking welfare while they used their "deserved" government checks to pay for beer, snowmobiles, boats, and motorcycles not to mention the big pickups. I knew some of these people in NH and VT. Sitting on their front porches complaining about people who don't work (they haven't worked in years) who have no trouble hunting, snowmobiling, fixing their trucks, etc.
57
@Marie
I have no clue if there are a lot but - there are those who go on disability, and remain on long past the time when they are functional.
There are many who work under the table, and many an employer happy to have them. There are many small contractors who expense their household expenses entirely as business expenses.
And then we do have the Cheater in Chief who could give lessons to everyone else about how to work the system, avoid taxes and still live very high on the hog - -
31
These folks exist to some degree from many diverse backgrounds. It's still irksome seeing them in check out lines, stylish clothes and driving fancy cars sometimes. It's not all mythical.
@Lane How do you think they ended up in that position. Could it be that they actually HAD jobs that paid off said car, bought those clothes etc, and then like 2008-9 happened we suddenly have even businessmen out on the streets, wide section of the populace displaced by economic downturn, and they may well OWN that stuff by having PAID for it, yet with injuries or unemployment, and employers only wanting young, low pay workers, we end up with some middle age folks on "Welfare" who happen to still own stuff.
The Real Welfare Queens were like Leona Helmsley who overcharged for poor housing and lived like a queen on the backs of those so poor as to Have to rent from her, and yet she refused to pay taxes or for repairs and upgrades needed in her units.
Trump is an excellent example of Welfare Queen since most of his own dealings are fraudulent to some degree.
15
@Lane there was as article written by a black female author and she said that some women can look stylish and beautiful with the small amount of money that they have. I call it being resourceful and it is "hard work" to make it work.
1
What a story. I will say, and I quote, "you can't make this stuff up."
This story would make a great movie.
4
@Paul, that was my reaction as well. Great story, conveyed with critical acumen and compassion.
"The press, politicians, and government officials saw Taylor as the country’s biggest welfare cheat. "
Here's where The Press certified its standing as a political meme factory, tool of the mindless Right. Even the 'good' press.
This woman was the least of our welfare problems. But she was a woman. She was poor. She was white but conveniently (for Republicans) pretended to be black at times.
She stumbled into the awareness of Ronnie Reagan, a lazy, none-too-bright bigot unable to imagine, let alone listen, to reason, angry at America and determined to wreck it.
With the help of"a vast Right Wing conspiracy" he did.
Attacking Taylor and everyone everywhere who received any kind of 'government benefit', the faithless Reagan ignored huge and damaging crime right in front of his smug face: doctors and hospital corporations siphoning off more than any welfare queen ever could.
Reagan installed meanness and greedy refusal to share that overtook American culture and became our hallmark, reviled throughout the world.
He was a vile man and created a "money is always right, rich guys and corporations need our protection" mentality that dramatically degraded our civil life. Listen to Trump and conservative (even "moderate") politicians today.
To clear up welfare fraud, keep an eye on the big fish, make benefits reliable, generous enough to support some facsimile of a decent life, stigma-free; you'll actually wind up saving money.
And have a better, safer country.
15
In understanding lies the genesis of compassion.
14
Great story. Apparently Reagan was the real welfare queen, exploiting and exaggerating the crimes of Ms. Taylor to win a job in Washington and rob millions of impoverished Americans of a safety net. Nonetheless, it was widespread racist belief still held by both black and white Americans, that minorities were gaming the system that gave Reagan's lies credence. The fault is no doubt the consequence of managing a system so large and compassionate in intent, without adequate efforts to identify fraud. Yet fraud was committed and believed in by individuals of every race. Selecting a biracial queen displayed Regan's genius at selling fictions.
257
And today we have Trump bellowing “build that wall” !
18
@Dan
And don't forget "Iran-Contra" and all the free designer clothes Nancy got! Wonder if Melania pays full price for hers?
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What is the purpose of this article? It was educational and I enjoyed it, certainly better than reading about our politics, but was the intent behind this article? Exposing another Willy Horton moment and pointing out it’s continued, if not, pervasive presence in our society. Demonizing this woman’s family from 100 years ago, which you could probably do to every family if you dug deep enough? It certainly wasn’t an attempt to exonerate a terrible person, who was created by a terrible environment, as you wouldn’t need to go back to the 70s, you could have wrote this article about Trump. There are so many wonderful people victimized by racism in America, why an article about Ms Taylor?
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Because the piece helps give context to an issue of important eras and events of American history? I saw no “demonization” of Taylor’s family. Those sort of situations in Jim Crow times weren’t uncommon. I just hope you’re not part of the group of Americans that disdain the more than passive interest in history and the other humanities on offer. It leads to critical thinking which leads to folks asking uncomfortable questions of their betters.
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@Billy Bobby Because Trump is still trying to use the image of "Welfare Queen" since he has never grown nor matured past that point in the '70s-'80s, and yet he is trying to push that old fake news meme back in front of us and call it real, again, when the REAL story about this woman shows that she was very different than what she was called: She was just a criminal fraud, like Trump, but did not have the money for a running bevvy of lawyers like Trump holds.
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it’s pretty hard for me not to feel like as wrong as this woman was, she seems so much to be a product of a really horrible environment.
We (society) do this to ourselves
There is something to be learned from this
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This woman's family tried to erase her. We all need to be aware that some families do this type of thing to women today. Maybe it's more subtle today. Maybe it isn't. Strong female and male allies can make all the difference for women being subjected to family erasure or it's cousin, perspecticide.
Kudos to the author who coined that term, whose name I wish I could call to memory now. Thank you NYT for publishing this important piece.
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The cruelest abuse to deny her existence while she is present, deny an education, deny love, she had no foundation in her life at all. Reagan had plenty of underhanded despicable policies towards the middle class but he was overt towards those in need. He introduced, them against us, that has led to the warped income disparity that exists today. This article also relates to the recent laws passed in GA and Alabama. It's all about the fetus. Those in the anti abortion movement are never asked if they will assume financial, emotional and the time entailed raising the baby into an adult. Are they willing to adopt? Sign a binding contract that will support the unwanted babies, provide burials for botched abortions, provide care for children who are left motherless? The money that was funneled into elections
to stack the State Houses and Congress with Republicans could have funded Universal Health Care, free tuition at public universities and restore the decaying infrastructure. Strange last night at a town hall hosted by Chris Mathews an attendee stated he supports the Republicans because they believe in freedom. Yes. He is unaware the meaning of freedom to Republicans is the freedom to exploit.
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"When Taylor changed identities, she wasn’t deviously leveraging race to her advantage."
Yes, she literally was.
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How so?
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Thanks for that bit of history. It was a very interesting read!!
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Most of the comments never mention Reagan who knowingly, and deceitfully, used this stereotype to his own and the GOP's political advantage. His campaign speech at the Neshoba County Fair, near Philadelphia, Mississippi furthered his unofficial but clever use of the racial card in his presidential bid. In my opinion his was the greater crime - the first of many.
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@James F Traynor
You are repeating a well-worn falsehood to slander a great and good and decent man. Calling Reagan racist is absurd. Read any biography of him. Read them all. Throughout his life, Reagan never saw color.
@VCuttolo Reagan did tell that story and knew exactly how it would be perceived. He also sat by will the AIDS virus decimated an entire generation of people. No to mention he knew he had dementia and ran a second time to rule over an entire country when he should have declined to run again.
So, no. He wasn't a good man.
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@VCuttolo
sorry but you are wrong. Reagan was racist as governor of CA. He also hated college students and turned the #1 in the world UC system into a system struggling to survive him. I was there (1971 PhD from UCSB).
5
We must stop vilifying. Is it possible that due to the lack of opportunity, working the system was a legitimate vocation. One of the few ways of entering the middle class for the disenfranchised. I am not endorsing crime but we have so many examples of tax cheats on such a massive scale that could also be held up as pariahs. This was a shameful example of the Reagan era which depicted a symptom as the problem. Thank you for the article explaining how this happened and hopefully we learn from it.
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@Ruby Tuesday
Calling what she did "a legitimate vocation" is quite literally "endorsing crime."
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A bit harsh. Go to any state welfare office and observe the population. A majority of woman of color. My daughter is a single parent is from a middle class family, mine, and we are so called “white” middle class. The women, mostly of color told her to get as much welfare money as possible from the state. I foolishly told my daughter to leave and that I would help her. The women of color scoffed at that solution. They were gaming a system that worked for them. Go to any Walmart at night and see how this welfare system works. No solution in slight. Would you let these so called ""cheats" starve? No solution in slight.
1
So this article demonstrates that a lie can be very dangerous. Free speech is no excuse for lying speech. What kills me is that there are doctors and other professionals that have stollen millions of dollars from the system and no one say much of anything about it. Why?
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Oscar jr@ Your comment that doctors and other professionals have stolen millions of dollars from the system is offensive to the medical profession. My husband a surgeon has spent 40 years caring for those in need of medical care. Just what can doctors steal from their patients? If anything it is some patients who have stolen from the doctors. Patients who come in looking for a paid medical
Leave from their job when there is no underlying condition for the request. Patients demanding excessive narcotics for pain, and having to have police called when they refuse to leave the office when they don’t get the prescription. Patients not showing up for surgery after whole medical teams have been assembled. Patients who lie about underlying medical conditions, alcoholism, drug addiction, making it difficult to correctly access their medical complaint. The way i see it is patients who have stolen millions of moments of a medical professionals life and wasted millions of tax payer money through dishonesty and issues they have caused themselves.
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@oscar jr
Welcome to distraction politics.
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@Letmeknow And your comment is offensive to responsible patients!
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Pretty ludicrous that wealthy, white collar criminals don't get the same indignation as a poor uneducated person who , through no fault of her own, was born under her circumstances! Some, in positions of very high places, who grew up with all the advantages and the best schools still do not have a moral center. We don't have to excuse Taylor, but we can understand her. How do we understand people like Donald Trump?
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Who "understands" Donald Trump? Good gracious.
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@Jane I'm not sure too many people "excuse" DT, I'm in New York, what do I know
2
Thank you for running this article. It’s illuminating and a bit fascinating. I have always wondered where and when our society developed this stereotype about people on welfare ‘being minorities and bilking the system’. It’s a pervasive belief that is talked about as common knowlege (in white American anyway) while all of the statistics and facts have always shown it to be demonstrably false. It shows the power of story telling. An analogy that comes to my mind is how Wolves have been demonized and killed mercilessly all predicated on the silly childhood story ‘little red riding hood’.
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The GOP is still preforming the same inappropriate reframing of issues, whereby a single villain becomes emblematic of an entire group of people. In today's world, it's the the whole asylum seekers who are now deemed terrorists, criminals, and rapists, all because of a few illegal immigrants who committed horrific crimes. Neglected is the all of the data that shows that illegal immigrants, and immigrants in general, are less likely to commit crimes that the native born.
One also notices that the GOP tends to marginalize and ostracize entire swaths of minority populations based on stereotype.
Here's my gross generalization: I fear conservatives, evangelicals, financial executives, and developers, because I can identify examples in each group of immoral, illegal, and criminal behavior.
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What a weird and disturbing story.
But things might have been different for a crafty survivor like Linda Taylor had she been born into a wealthy family. Just think of Donald Trump, AKA John Miller, AKA John Baron, notorious son of Fred "Mr. Green" Trump. The man who has changed his heritage, income, net worth, appearance, political affiliation, educational background, and anything else that comes to mind when required to con and manipulate people and businesses. The man who said what he says he didn't say, and believes in nothing but his own desires and destiny.
Like pod people, these damaged individuals live among us. And they're good at what they do because they have no conscience.
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@KJ These "damaged individuals" who you note "live among us", are in my view, unquestionably psychopaths.
Raging toxic narcissists who lack the capacity for empathy; they exist in all walks of life in much greater numbers than we commonly understand. On this point you may be interested in the work of Dr. Robert Hare, a researcher in the area of psychopathology, and author of the Hare Psychopathy Check List - Revised (PCL-R), one of the generally accepted standards for assessing psychopathy. http://www.hare.org/
A greater awareness of the prevalence of psychopathic individuals, and the damage they do to all of us regularly, would go along way towards improving the quality of our lives.
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I’ll never understand the outrage over extremely minor food stamp abuses, when it’s highly paid doctors committing Medicare fraud who steal vastly more public money. And, of course, military contractors. But their thefts don’t offer the neat visual of a brown skinned man walking out of a bodega with a few cigarettes. Hate is toxic, but if you must engage in it, please direct it toward the right targets.
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@Albert Ellh
It’s also interesting that farm subsidies are not considered welfare. Wonder why.
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@Albert Ell Like Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who, prior to his career as a politician, was the CEO of the hospital conglomerate he built, which was convicted of the LARGEST MEDICARE FRAUD ever. Scott got off , pleading "The 5th" 76 times! And hence started his political career.
Previously he was the worst Governor of Florida (2 terms) who managed to edge out Sen. Bill Nelson in 2018, a hard working, honest man who spent his time away from Washington going among his constituents to see what needed doing.
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@Albert Ell
Define "extremely minor". I'd agree with your example, but there are clearly more serious abuses going on.
With the start this woman had in her life, how could anyone expect more? She used what she didn't have - an identity - to get by.
Her welfare fraud pales in comparison to the corrupt lives of the likes of Donald Trump, Scott Pruitt, Steven Mnuchin, and others.
Thanks, Mr. Levin, for a very interesting piece.
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@Joy
Bingo!
5
Meanwhile Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s father just paid the highest price ever for a living artist’s creation: A shiny metal bunny rabbit. Think what Mnuchin was taught by this profligate and now he’s managing the Treasury.
11
Fascinating story of a life that I hope people read beyond the first few paragraphs.
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"There is no evidence that people who get food stamps eat a disproportionate amount of lobster."
Seriously? On what planet is lobster not a luxury food item (despite the author's air-quotes). Many fair-minded people would argue that the quantity of lobster someone should eat on the public's dime is exactly zero. Downwardly mobile, formerly middle-class people are fed up with knee-jerk liberalism that never sees them as deserving of any help because they aren't part of a favored demographic. If you doubt that observation, just ask Trump voters in the swing states that sealed Hillary's fate on election night. And all of the histrionics by Democrats over the Mueller report (rather than working to actually help those voters) hasn't changed any hearts or minds.
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@Earl W. They certainly aren't buying it regularly, any more than I am. Welfare isn't *that* lucrative. So if once every year or two, someone decided to have a real treat -- celebrate something -- and buy lobster with food stamps, so what? I cannot believe that lobster-buying -- or the purchase of other luxury foods -- is rampant in the food stamp quarters. Much ado about not a whole lot.
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@Earl W. Actually the price of lobster the last few years, due to good supplies, has in many instances been cheaper than many cuts of meat or fish with the exception of pork.
7
In Maine.
Welfare is a failed program that Bill Clinton under R pressure materially revised. These revisions would have been considered impossible, racists and cruel 10 years before. Instead, they have not been the disaster that critics of the time. Like much of the well meaning outsourcing of one’s life to government, welfare represented and aid to some and to many a crutch that resulted in generational dependence.
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@Chris
I would argue Clinton’s welfare cuts have been a disaster. What evidence do you have to the contrary?
4
Identity is so fickle as this story reveals. She could adopt many so called races in order to survive.
To identify someone as a welfare queen like those mean spirited politicians is symbolic of a scapegoating mechanism the powerful employ over language.
How is it possible to determine what is indeterminate? Hasn’t quantum physics revealed the classical explanation of reality outdated!
1
Like every other bureaucratic system there is room for exploitation by those who are dishonest. The subject of this story is sympathetic but that doesn’t mean we need to sanitize or minimize her ultimate dishonesty. The fact that we as a society now seem to believe that every bad childhood justifies all subsequent bad behavior is part of our social problem. If we bend and stretch all of the rules they lose meaning and the people who follow them wind up disadvantaged compared to those who do not.
Welfare serves a completely necessary purpose. There is however, rampant fraud. Many people have learned how to game the system to extract maximum benefits. For instance, in NYC it is quite common for people to not pay their rent, routinely, and receive a welfare grant to avoid eviction. Many people do this annually.
Like every other system it is those who game it that give everyone else a bad name. The legitimately needy person who needs a grant or benefits falls under the same umbrella as the manipulator in public opinion. It’s unfortunate and unfair to those in need who play by the rules.
The stereotype of the welfare queen is unfair to many honest people who genuinely need assistance. But the acts that give rise to the negative stereotype persist and people who play by the rules and pay their taxes are justifiably incensed when they see public money, taxes, essentially stolen at their collective expense. And really, it’s difficult to sanitize greed as opposed to need.
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@ImkayDo you have evidence for your assertions? Who is “routinely” receiving welfare grants annually to avoid paying rent?
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@Margaret
I don't have any numbers for you but anecdotally, in NYC there is an entire socioeconomic class (20%?) that is either nonemployed, severely underemployed, or unemployable and lives off the public dole.
There are welfare recipients across the country, but I think you have to go to NYC or Chicago or another city to see the full scope.
1
It depends upon what you mean by evidence. If you mean documents and physical proof that I can post here, then no. That would take a lot of time to accumulate and require a FOIL request and probably quite a few subpoenas. So no. I also wasn’t aware that I was expected to be prepared for trial in the comment section of the NYT:)
If you mean am I qualified to advance this opinion then yes, I have observed this in a professional capacity for many years. To be completely accurate, when I said many, I should say many people who are familiar with the way our public assistance programs work. Not the entire population of NYC.
Most systems are capable of exploration by those who are so inclined. That is a part of the problem. The other is oversight and enforcement of the rules that exist. And my point was essentially that the people who exploit these programs hurt others who need when by perpetuating negative stereotypes.
Public assistance is a good thing. Abusing it is not.
$9,000 in 1974 is worth just under $50,000 today, a not inconsiderable sum.
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@Mon Ray but it's far short of the $150,000 that a certain liar claimed.
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@Mon Ray
And your point is?
Contrast her $9,000 with the millions stolen and/or lost by financial executives in the last crisis.
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@Scott
Correction. Billions.
20
Scott,
Trillions, not billions or millions.
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@PT
Trillions, not billions or millions.
14
It seems to me that "welfare queens" are like somewhat gun fight in the Old West in reputation and are highly overstated. That gunslingers could come into town and cow its inhabitants just want the usual case. People then, as now, wouldn't tolerate bad behavior and did something about it. Gun fights were far rarer than the movies would imply.
I think the same applies to welfare. No doubt, there are people who attempt to game the system but I think it's rare relative to the number of legitimate recipients.
The "welfare queen" is the "go to" phrase used by people to describe strangers' who do use welfare. People don't like to be poor and work, if it can be found and the person is capable is almost always the better economic alternative. Most often people go into welfare only temporarily.
Don't condemn someone merely because they need financial help. If fraud is rampant, then there would be ample evidence to support the assertion. If the evidence did exist, then the public would happily point out the data to others.
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Outright welfare fraud is, to me, less sad than 3-4 generations of women in the same family repeating the same mistake: using welfare not for what it was designed for -- subsidizing people for a while so that they could get educations and jobs -- but for perpetuating a culture of dependency. Having babies on someone else's dime isn't great. Doing so for fifty years is a bit much.
Which doesn't excuse various types of fraud by the rich.
3
I see a lot of “judges, jurors and executioners” in the comments posted thus far. So much for compassion and trying to understand those less fortunate.
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@Mark Allard You are absolutely right! And, I might add, there is precious little judgment in the comments so far about Ronald Reagan opportunistically spreading around this pernicious lie. Yet a lot of people today regard him as a "saint." I am tempted to say that Reagan---in his whole negative effect on our nation---was every bit as much a criminal as his "welfare queen" ever was.
15
The problem is with stories like this is it paints all people who receive assistance with the same broad brush.
There are probably more elderly people with food stamps and who would go hungry if it weren't for food stamps. The same goes for the CHIP and WIC programs for children.
Why don't people complain about the Companies who pay such low wages that their employees need food stamps.
It appears when stories come out about some people cheating the system, we all judge that all people receiving assistance are committing fraud.
Maybe we should all start paying attention to those who commit tax fraud instead. Or Corporations who get Corporate Welfare in many forms.
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@Jean The actual article is criticizing "stories like this" and is trying to show how false they are. That's the point of the article.
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@Jean
"The problem is with stories like this is it paints all people who receive assistance with the same broad brush."
The 'Welfare Queen' stereotype does.
The story this article tells does not.
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@Jean
Who is 'we'?
Who are 'people'?
A majority of the baby daddy and baby momma on welfare are and always have been white European American like Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. While the percentage of black African Americans in that cohort is higher there are 5x as many white European Americans.
Moreover while the black percentage is shrinking the white welfare poverty caste is growing. Having attained the infamous status of 'the tangled web of pathology that would benefit from a period of benign neglect' malignly attributed to poor black families by Daniel P. Moynihan.
4
at the basest level, economics is still "hunting and gathering"
14
Very valid points,but fraud is very rampant,not a myth.One way around the system is too buy Legitimate items at a big store,And then go trade them at the neighborhood bodega for things such as cigarettes and other things that are not allowed.The amount of bodegas In My town have exponentially increased over the last several years,Mainly due to this phenomenon.There is no way you could have a store every few feet surviving without it.Also energy assistance checks given to people with two brand new cars in the driveway may raise a few eyebrows.
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There are “food deserts” all over the country where there are no big supermarkets within a reasonable distance.
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@John crane You are making assumptions about who receives assistance and how they are spending it. Are bodegas really only able to survive through fraud with such a large surrounding customer base? I’m curious if there is any data to back up these assumptions of fraud?
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@John crane
Pretty broad brush there, John.
How much can one buy with a monthly allotment of food stamps? And what kind of cash/barter return can a seller of those illicit items expect to get?
And those two brand new cars can be leased for a few hundred dollars a month......
Pretty scrappy hustling for not much.
What would you do if you were trying to live on $7.25 an hour?
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I think the line was: you needed four children in order to make the payment on the Cadillac. Of course there were other permutations and combinations, but that was the basic math for Welfare Cadillac.
I believe the brand is suffering today, apart from the truck-like vehicle referred to in the urban vernacular as the "Yescalade", which remains a perennial bestseller for its unmatched street cred.
It too is a shape shifter and chameleon which can belong on either the north or south sides of Chicago.
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The food stamp and welfare system needs more oversight and restrictions.
I recently witnessed a man (who had a baby with him) using food stamps to purchase 10 boxes of Duncan Hines cake mix, one dozen rolls @60 cents apiece, and a bottle of windex. Absolutely nothing healthy about this purchase, but obviously legal. Food stamps should cover flour, eggs, sugar, and healthy foods, not prepackaged cake mixes.
This is not an unusual case. I do not want to pay for this and I consider myself a liberal!
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Duncan Hines pays politicians to NOT stop the ability to use food stamp money for unhealthy choices. Also, prepackaged food is often cheaper in our insane food system. So, while you see one thing the purchaser may just see the most bang for the buck.
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@M
The $40k stated most likely covered Medicaid, housing, food stamps, etc. over the years. Even today, welfare benefits do not amount to $40k in cash, it’s a fallacy to make people think that people on public assistance are ripping off the system.
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@M
A few years back I had the experience of working with human service clients. I had assumed the majority of disability claims were for physical issues but in my experience it was more likely to be mental.
Not so much in terms of mental illness, but more often a case of severely limited intelligence. Do welfare recipients make bad choices? Sure do... Same as everyone else. But to assume 'this is not an unusual case' is based on what?
Your _one_ observation, or a stereotype?
BTW: If an employer took it upon themselves to critique how you spend your earnings would that be OK? After all, any employer who can evaluate your work performance is by definition your superior...
31
This shibboleth perpetuated by Reagan, that this woman was the rule for welfare recipients is and has always been totally false. This doesn't stop conservatives and large segments of the public from calling for elimination of the safety net on this basis. As a public interest attorney representing indigent people, My experience over almost 20 years has been that welfare cheats are rare, and the one legitimate scammer that I personally encountered in this time was a formerly middle class white man who could not accept that the "welfare to work" provision of the program required him to work at a minimum wage job after a lifetime of remunerative employment.
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@William Stuber, A co-worker in Atlanta once bragged about buying her groceries with vouchers that she paid 25 cents on the dollar. They could and would trade them for anything. I guess your experience is pretty limited.
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@William Stuber
Right, any system has cheats, the question is why the American public thinks it better to let people really in need starve rather than keep an imperfect (safety net) system and just work continually to improve it. The more obvious parts of the answer (unwillingness to "see" the poor all around us, unwillingness to help pay for a safety net, the racism that lets white Americans both be privately hostile to and publicly express hostility towards black people in need and use them as scapegoats) have always spoken very poorly of our society.
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@Ryan
So a n=1 study generalizes?
24