The Deserved versus Undeserved
Whether the death of the poor is the goal or the acceptable cost the impact is the same
What I Learned in Social Welfare Policy Class and Why It Matters More Than Ever
When I took Social Welfare Policy in graduate school, I expected dry lectures on programs and paperwork. What I got instead was a clear view into a system designed to divide, control, and punish.
The structure we call “the safety net” wasn’t created to catch everyone. It was built to filter. To sort. To judge.
And now, nearly 400 years later, those same beliefs are being repackaged and promoted again.
Let’s talk about where this came from, how racism shaped it, and why this isn’t a new debate. It’s the same old story, told again through new legislation.
Where It All Began: Inventing the “Deserving” Poor
The idea that some people are morally worthy of help while others must be punished for needing it is older than the United States.
In 1601, England passed the Elizabethan Poor Laws, which divided the poor into three categories:
The deserving poor: People who are elderly, sick, or disabled
The able-bodied poor: Expected to work in exchange for any assistance
The undeserving poor: Viewed as lazy, deviant, or criminal
By 1834, new reforms made the system intentionally harsh. The British created workhouses that forced families apart and demanded brutal labor in exchange for minimal support.
The goal was clear: to make poverty as humiliating as possible so people wouldn’t “abuse” public aid.
How America Adopted and Racialized the System
The U.S. borrowed this framework and gave it an even more violent twist.
From the beginning, welfare policy in the U.S. has been structured around race, morality, and punishment.
Enslaved people were excluded from any concept of public aid because they weren’t seen as citizens or humans.
After emancipation, Black communities were briefly supported through the Freedmen’s Bureau, but that effort was underfunded, violently opposed, and quickly dismantled.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Black families were denied aid, excluded from housing programs, and disproportionately targeted by caseworkers.
Welfare in America never meant universal care. It meant surveillance, exclusion, and the preservation of white power.
🕵️♀️ Charity as Judgment: How Social Work Was Taught to Police Morality
As charity work became professionalized in the late 1800s, it didn’t lose its moral lens; it sharpened it.
Early caseworkers were trained not just to assess need but to determine worth. They inspected homes, tracked behavior, and decided whether poor families, especially mothers, were behaving well enough to “deserve” support.
This moral policing targeted:
Unmarried mothers
Black and immigrant families
Anyone who didn’t match white, Christian, Victorian ideals
Even the “Mothers’ Pensions” of the early 1900s, the precursors to modern welfare, were reserved mainly for white, married women.
Poor women of color were often viewed as deviant simply for needing help.
The New Deal: Help with Built-In Exclusions
When the U.S. built its first broad social programs during the Great Depression, they changed lives, but only for some.
Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Aid to Dependent Children excluded entire categories of Black workers, especially those in domestic or agricultural labor. These exclusions weren’t accidents. They were demanded by Southern lawmakers who wanted to maintain the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow.
Even when poor families received aid, caseworkers retained the power to cut them off for perceived moral failures. And as always, the most scrutinized were poor Black women.
The system had changed on paper, but in practice, the same patterns of judgment, control, and exclusion remained.
War on Poverty: Help, Still with Strings Attached
In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty and created landmark programs like:
Medicaid and Medicare
Head Start
Food Stamps (now SNAP)
Housing assistance (Section 8)
These were significant advances. However, they were still framed in terms of moral worth and deservingness.
Black and Brown families continued to face greater scrutiny, harsher case management, and constant surveillance.
The very design of Medicaid, tying health access to poverty, disability, or pregnancy, meant that receiving care was never a right. It was a conditionally granted favor.
Across every program, one pattern held true: if you were poor, you were suspect.
And if you were poor and Black, you were watched.
What About Disability?
Disability policy also reflects the same sorting mindset.
Programs like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) were created to assist individuals who are unable to work, but they require ongoing documentation, medical verification, and regular eligibility reviews.
This often means repeatedly proving that you’re still “disabled enough” to be deserving.
Even the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), while a civil rights breakthrough, left many support needs tied to employment or legal advocacy. Access remains conditional, not guaranteed.
👑 The “Welfare Queen”: A Racist Invention with Real Power
In the 1970s and ’80s, President Ronald Reagan introduced a new villain to the public imagination: the “welfare queen.”
This was a coded stereotype centered on a Black woman supposedly defrauding the system, driving a Cadillac, and collecting checks under multiple names. It was a lie. But it worked.
The myth was powerful because it echoed old beliefs:
That poverty is a personal failure
That Black women are irresponsible
That public aid creates dependency
This lie justified slashing welfare programs, increasing red tape, and making public assistance harder to access.
It’s no coincidence that this era also saw the rise of mass incarceration, targeting the same communities denied support.
1996: Welfare “Reform” Makes Work the New Moral Test
In 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).
This law was promoted as common sense: ending “dependency,” promoting work, and encouraging responsibility. But here’s what it actually did:
Eliminated traditional welfare and created TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
Added strict work requirements
Imposed time limits
Gave states broad discretion to deny aid
What actually happened?
The outcomes were clear within years:
Fewer families got help
Deep poverty increased
Racial disparities widened
Bureaucratic burdens grew
Work outcomes didn’t improve
🧠 Today’s Fight: Medicaid Work Requirements and the Heritage Agenda
Now, in 2025, the same logic is back, this time targeting the healthcare sector. But the appeal is to people who BELIEVE that poverty is due to laziness or moral failings, not those who are implementing the policy.
They claim it’s about “accountability.” But the evidence says otherwise:
Most Medicaid recipients already work or qualify for exemptions due to caregiving, disability, or school
In Arkansas, when these requirements were implemented, over 18,000 people lost coverage, primarily due to bureaucratic confusion, rather than refusal to work.
There was no increase in employment.
This policy doesn’t fix healthcare or promote economic mobility, because the problem was never just about the majority of people refusing to work.
🔥 The Real Purpose: Social Control
It’s a worldview, a way of sorting people into “worthy” and “unworthy” based on class, race, gender, and labor.
⚠️ What’s at Risk When Medicaid Is Targeted
👉 Even if you don’t have Medicaid—and don’t think you’re affected—these cuts will hit your community.
➤ Hospitals will close.
Rural and safety-net hospitals depend on Medicaid funding to stay open. Without it, many will shut down.➤ Emergency rooms will overflow.
More uninsured people mean more people turning to ERs for care they couldn’t get earlier.➤ Your healthcare costs will go up.
When hospitals absorb more unpaid care, your insurance premiums and hospital bills increase to make up the difference.
✨ What If We Asked Better Questions?
Instead of asking,
“Aren’t people poor because they are lazy?”
or even thinking you have the right to judge a person or group of people who are poor or struggling
Let’s ask:
Why is healthcare tied to employment at all?
Why do we treat poor people as potential criminals instead of neighbors?
Why are we more comfortable policing the poor than holding the rich accountable?
Who benefits when we continue to ask the wrong questions?
I hope you liked this newsletter. I write about therapy and social work issues I’m thinking about in my newsletter.
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Kristen McClure MSW, LCSW