Poverty, disability, and the power of the “welfare queen”Observations of a poverty lawyer-turned-policy

advocate

Remarks for Erkulwater & French’s course “Bringing Human Rights Home” – U. Richmond – February 24, 2014

Rebecca Vallas, Esq.Deputy Director

NOSSCR Government Affairs Office

Observation no. 1: Poverty as both cause and consequence of disability

• Poverty as cause of disability• Disability occurs on income gradient• Especially pronounced in childhood

• 7% of kids >200% FPL• 12+% of kids <100% FPL

• Potential explanations: environmental, healthcare disparities, heritability

Poverty as cause and consequence of disability, cont.

• Poverty as consequence of disability • Two-thirds of chronic poor have disabilities• People w/disabilities much more likely to

experience poverty, material hardship – even controlling for income

• Families caring for children with disabilities• Poverty (and sub-poverty) level income

support

Observation no. 2: Inadequacy of income support

• Social Security Disability Insurance• Replaces ~half of previous earnings• Average benefit = $1130/mo

• Compare: FPL = $972/mo

• Supplemental Security Income• FBR = $721/mo for 2014• Average benefit = $520/mo ($17/day)

• Half or three-quarters of FPL

• Outdated asset limits prohibit savings, ensure asset poverty

Inadequacy of income support, cont.

• Long wait for benefits (can be years)• Consequences: people die waiting; become

homeless; end up living in their cars; suffer worsening health with no healthcare access…

• Restrictive eligibility criteria• OECD: strictest in developed world• 6 in 10 denied• 56 mil Americans w/disab. / 13 mil receive

benefits• What about people w/“non-severe”

disabilities?

Observation no. 3: Disconnect between public perception,

reality

Too easy to qualify

Sitting on couch eating bonbons

The “new unemployment”

Boondoggle The “new welfare”

“Modern-day eunuchs”

Too generous “Fakers”

“rampant fraud”

Observation no. 4: The role of media

• Proximity Visibility

• “When highly visible policies exist primarily as distant objects of perception for mass publics, they may elicit rapt attention and powerful emotion, but they will lack concrete presence in most people’s lives. In such instances…public perceptions will depend more heavily on elite rhetoric, media frames, and widely held cultural beliefs”

--Soss & Schram, “Welfare reform as a failed political strategy: Evidence and explanations for the stability of public opinion (2006)

Role of media -- anecdote

“It is the story of the media’s creation of an image—which is not necessarily false or exclusive, but dissembling in its uniqueness—and the public’s selective gravitation to that image in order to validate its own [biases].”

---Lucy A. Smith, “Race, Rat Bites and Unfit Mothers: How Media Discourse Informs Welfare Legislation Debate” (1994)

Slate Magazine, Sept. 2010

Washington Post: “The New Unemployment”

Washington Post, Sept. 2010

60 Minutes – “secret welfare system…ravaged by waste and fraud”

“Too easy” to qualify for benefits

Wall Street Journal, Nov. 2010

Wall Street Journal, March 2011

Disability Programs as Broken, Unsustainable, Out of Control

The Economist, Mar. 2011

Observation no. 5: “Unworthiness”

• Notion of the “welfare queen” enables simultaneous holding of conflicting positions, assuages cognitive dissonance• Support for helping those in need• But not if it goes to the “unworthy”

• Validates (racial/gender/ableist, etc.) biases

• Otherization by another name

The “unworthy” disabled

• Visibly impaired as “truly disabled”

• Skepticism of hidden / invisible impairments

• Mental impairments (“feeling sad”)

• Musculoskeletal impairments (“back pain”)

• “Squishy”; “subjective”; “not as severe”; “easily faked”

Fox News: “Crazy Checks”

• “The problem is that so many young people, especially men, are claiming they are nuts. Yes, this is the biggest scam since the welfare queens of the 1980s, and it’s getting worse. They call it “the crazy check” and there are wide swathes [sic] of men playing the system for these checks. This is seen by many as a form of social justice, and it’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s amazing and it’s suicidal for our nation. Perhaps the saddest part is that there is no shame to this game…”

Heritage: “Able-Bodied People Defrauding Social Security Disability Program”

• “After shimmying up trees and doing away with storm debris, the obviously able-bodied tree trimmer asked his customer, ‘Could you make the check out to my mom? I’m on disability.’ …

---As told by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who was the

customer in the story

This American Life/NPR’s Planet Money

Chana Joffe Walt, NPR: “I have back pain”

• “I talked to lots of people in Hale County who were on disability. Sometimes, the disability seemed unambiguous… Other stories seemed less clear… [Women] who told me how their backs kept them up at night and made it hard for them to stand on the job. …“I have back pain. My editor has a herniated disc, and he works harder than anyone I know. There must be millions of people with asthma and diabetes who go to work every day. Who gets to decide whether, say, back pain makes someone disabled?”

“Men on disability are modern-day eunuchs”

Observation no. 6:Policymaking by anecdote

• Reagan’s “Welfare queen” Clinton’s “The end of welfare as we know it”

• “Food Stamp Surfer” $8B in cuts, 2014 Farm Bill

Policymaking by anecdote, cont.

• Mid-1990s – “crazy checks” media frenzy (the lesser known component of 1996 welfare cuts)

• ABC’s PrimeTime Live (1994)• Diane Sawyer:“All you need is a child willing to tell

a big fib…”• Chris Wallace: “Guidelines are so vague and lax

that even normal children can qualify for benefits, sometimes being coached by their parents…”

• “It’s an open invitation to fraud…parents are buying Mercedes cars with their children’s checks…”

Policymaking by anecdote, cont.

• Crazy checks frenzy as “a case study in how sometimes sloppy media reports can shape what passes for political reform”

--Christopher Georges, “A Media Crusade Gone Haywire” - Forbes Media Critic (1995)

• Consequence: 100,000-200,000 children with disabilities terminated as part of 1996 PRWORA; estimated 22% have not qualified under new standard in years since

Observation no. 7: What’s in a name?

• Social insurance

• Social Security net

• Entitlement

Observation no. 8: Present day

• Deficit scaremongering has left a mark

• Little change in public opinion of “welfare” after 1996 cuts (see, e.g., Soss & Schram); myth of the “welfare queen” alive and well (the 47%)

• What’s left to cut?