About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

22 Am. U. J. Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 247 (2013-2014)
The Return of the Welfare Queen

handle is hein.journals/ajgsp22 and id is 267 raw text is: THE RETURN OF THE WELFARE QUEEN MICHELE ESTRIN GILMAN* Introduction............................. .............247 I. Welfare in the 2012 Campaign................ ............248 II. The History of the Welfare Queen.........................256 III. The Truth About TANF................. ..............266 IV. A New Vision for Welfare ................. ............274 Conclusion ................................................279 INTRODUCTION After welfare reform was passed in 1996, there was every reason to hope that the welfare queen was dead. The welfare queen was shorthand for a lazy woman of color, with numerous children she cannot support, who is cheating taxpayers by abusing the system to collect government assistance. For years, this long-standing racist and gendered stereotype was used to attack the poor and the cash assistance programs that support them. In 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) capped welfare receipt to five years and required work as a condition of eligibility, thus stripping the welfare queen of her throne of dependency. Nevertheless, during the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney resurrected the welfare queen. In a barrage of television campaign ads, Governor Romney accused President Obama of gutting TANF work requirements by allowing states to apply for waivers. Governor Romney kept the ads on the air even after they were disproved by independent fact-checkers who explained that state governors, including Republicans, asked the Obama Administration to consider waivers so that states could have greater flexibility in designing and reporting on effective work requirements. In the subsequent battle to prove which candidate was toughest on the poor, there was no mention that TANF is largely a failure. While TANF enrollment has plunged since * Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law; Director, Civil Advocacy Clinic; Co-Director, Center on Applied Feminism. B.A., Duke University, J.D., University of Michigan Law School. 247

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most