Why the welfare system depends on rule-breaking
Our first preview from Issue Seventeen
Now that April Fools’ Day is safely behind us, you can rest assured that this is no hoax: Issue Seventeen of The Drift is coming soon. In our first preview piece, Maia Silber examines the Trump administration’s accusations of widespread welfare fraud and argues the ensuing debate has masked the way the U.S. welfare state relies on rule-breaking to keep recipients fearful and disorganized. “From its earliest days,” Silber writes, “America’s welfare system has forced its beneficiaries to lie not only for their survival, but also for its own survival.” Read her essay online today, and be sure to subscribe to read the full issue when it arrives.
Fraud With Benefits | How Breaking the Rules Makes Welfare Work
MAIA SILBER
Overly punitive as it’s always been and truly draconian as it’s become, welfare policing still doesn’t really deter welfare fraud. It does, however, deter the poor from confiding in one another, from discovering, as activists once did, that their sources of private shame are part of a common struggle.