Why I Don’t Judge Welfare Recipients
Most of us are one life event away from being eligible for welfare and don’t understand how it works.
PASSING JUDGEMENT ON WELFARE RECIPIENTS hit the mainstream in 1976. This was when then-California Governor Ronald Reagan brought up the infamous Chicago “Welfare Queen” on the campaign trail while vying for the GOP presidential nomination.
It was an outlandish, racially charged tale of a woman who “used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare,” and, according to Reagan, “her tax-free cash income alone has been running at $150,000 a year.”
Reagan continued this tale through his successful 1980 presidential campaign.
The woman, Linda Taylor, was real, even if her exploits were exaggerated for political theater. However, by 1980 she had already been charged, convicted, and served her time for 51 combined counts of perjury, illegally receiving welfare checks, and falsifying welfare returns.
In science, data, and technology, this is what we call an edge case. A notable outlier that only happens in extreme situations or at the highest or lowest end of a range of possible scenarios. In criminal justice, this is called the system working as intended. An…
