What attacks on welfare are really about

One of the right’s favorite political memes is the image of the undeserving poor, collecting generous welfare benefits while abusing drugs and choosing to remain unemployed. It’s a useful meme for those who would shrink government, especially government social spending. See, they don’t deserve it anyway. Florida’s government exploited this meme when it required drug testing for welfare applicants, but nearly all applicants tested clean. Some potential applicants presumably knew they would test positive and so declined to apply, which may have been the state’s plan.

Consider the absurdity of focusing on voluntary idleless while millions of Americans have been forced out of work, often reduced to taking jobs that pay much less than they earned before. Conservatives prefer to talk about the idle poor rather than discuss the difficulties of the (much larger) low-income working class, toiling away for poor wages, meager benefits and without the advantage of collective bargaining rights.

This still leaves us with the cynical, demagogic use of poor people’s plight to obscure larger economic problems. Instead of focusing on a real plan to get people working and prospering again, attack the welfare moms, who can’t fight back. Exploit people’s resentments for the sake of politics.

The logic is perfect: Don’t let your money go to those people who will just spend it on drugs. Make them pee in a cup. Subject them to a degrading experience before they can gain the privilege of funding for a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. The prospect alone will make some people not bother, and we can save money that way!

If you thought policies like this were about encouraging work and discouraging bad behaviors among the poor, keep thinking. Consider why making it more difficult for people to get support – especially during a time when it’s so difficult to get a job – is such an important goal. Not a jobs program to actually provide the employment the private sector is failing so miserably to produce, but mean-spirited policies to cut off support from the most vulnerable people.

If we want people working, let’s provide the jobs. Otherwise let’s at least give people the dignity of not attacking them while they negotiate life’s challenges without the privileges many of us take for granted.