“Needy Families” and “Welfare Cheats”: The Rhetoric of Family Values in the 1961-1962 Welfare Reform Debates Author: Jill M. Weber Assistant Professor, Communication Studies Hollins University
[email protected] Jill M. Weber is Assistant professor of Communication Studies at Hollins Univer- sity and the Coordinator of the Oral Communication Skills Initiative. She would like to thank Thomas W. Benson, J. Michael Hogan, Nancy Legge, and two anony- mous reviewers for their valuable feedback and guidance on this essay. The Romney presidential campaign found itself in the midst of controversy in September 2012 after the release of a video in which the Republican presidential candidate criticized the values and ideals of the “47% of the people who,” Romney argued, “will vote for the president no matter what.”1 Romney stated: All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That [sic] that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. 2 Romney’s comments fueled the contemporary debate about welfare programs, personal responsibility, and the government’s involvement in family life. However, the roots of the issues he raised and the negative images that he invoked of men and women “dependent upon government” for the care and support of themselves and their families date back to at least the early 1960s when federal and state officials proposed new policies designed to reduce the number of impoverished families.