Ask Rockridge: The Welfare Safety Net

We all love a good story. From the latest Hollywood scandal to the story of Paul Revere, stories are generally more engaging than laundry lists of positions. Because these narratives, when they are well framed, allow us to connect facts and issues with our moral world view, they allow our views to become more easily understood. President Ronald Reagan used a narrative to explain why welfare was immoral. Paraphrasing, it went something like this:

There are people out there, welfare queens, living off of the hard earned dollars of the American taxpayer. We continue to support them through social programs, giving them handouts to encourage their lack of discipline. We must end this immoral action of rewarding the undisciplined, and force these freeloaders to become self-sufficient.

Reagan's words resonated with the public because they engaged the deep frame of individual responsibility. This frame was already well-entrenched in the minds of millions of Americans because it had been repeated by conservative think tanks for over a decade. Reagan was not listing off reasons why the welfare policy didn't work; he used these well-entrenched frames to activate powerful feelings against a policy that most people knew little about.

As progressives, we know that this stereotype of the "welfare queen" is mostly untrue and thus deceptive. However, simply negating this frame will only reinforce it. We must respond with a new frame based upon the progressive values of human empathy and the responsibility of the government to protect and empower its citizens. In other words, we need to tell our own narrative (see Thinking Points Chapter 8), one that articulates our progressive values and drives the change we seek.

One frame that can be used is the "safety-net" frame. In the safety-net frame, we believe that as a country blessed with material wealth, the United States should ensure a baseline standard of living below which no person should fall. Welfare is part of the safety-net in America.

We must incorporate the frame into our narrative. In this progressive narrative, the villains (conservative government) are those in power who deny the victims (the working poor) the assistance they need to survive and contribute to society. Every time the villains try to cut back on programs such as welfare, they commit a crime; they default by failing to return on their responsibility to protect their citizens from poverty and empower their citizens to live healthy, active lives.

The heroes recognize that it is the responsibility of the members of a civilized nation and its government to ensure that no one drops below the baseline of acceptable living. As such, these heroes--who can be ordinary members of the progressive community, as well as political leaders--demand that the government abide by its responsibility and protect its citizens from needless suffering.

The reward the hero earns for his or her good work is twofold. The benefits include adding human capital to the economy, and more importantly, empowerment of those who once were in need to add their own personal, social, and cultural ingenuity to society. The hero is doing what's smart by doing what's right.

In practical terms, this narrative can be told in a number of different ways, changing the situations each of the characters encounters while maintaining their basic roles. One possibility is to tell the narrative as the story of a father who lost his job at Enron, through no fault of his own. He needed welfare to support his family as he searched for a new job. Had the government been more vigilant in its oversight of large corporations and more empathetic to his struggle in its allocation of welfare, perhaps he would not be in such a difficult situation. Not only would this narrative support a change in thinking about welfare, it could also act as a strategic initiative to change the way we see role of government in America today.

By telling this narrative, we can frame the welfare debate as the moral issue it is, according to progressive values. In so doing, we can help create effective welfare policies that protect and empower millions of Americans who are struggling in today's economy.

But we must keep in mind that this is a long-term project. The power of Reagan's welfare queen narrative was the strength of its cognitive foundation: the repetition of conservative frames until they had become "common sense." Progressive narratives will attain similar power as the progressive frames that support them are repeated in and across issues.

Adam Schaffer
Eric Haas
The Rockridge Institute

Rockridge Nation is a community project of the 501 C-3 Rockridge Institute. The weekly question posted here at BuzzFlash is designed to help readers express progressive views and values in the ongoing dialogue that is politics.

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