18
families were trapped in a culture of poverty that were passed from generation to generation.
28
:
“We have too many people who are the second and third generation of their families on welfare.
It has become a permanent way of life for a whole segment of our society.”
29
Reagan would also
commonly share anecdotes of welfare recipients cheating the system and living luxuriously,
igniting the resentment of “working citizens who find themselves financing benefits that
sometimes exceed their own standard of living.” For example, he told his audiences that: “In
New York, a welfare family was housed in the Waldorf-Astoria, the famous luxury hotel.”
30
These kinds of stories became legion in Reagan’s campaign for the presidency in 1976,
when he made a Chicago “welfare queen” part of his stump speech:
There’s a woman in Chicago…She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security
cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four nonexistent deceased husbands…And
she’s collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps,
and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone
is over $150,000.
31
This particular anecdote and, no doubt, many of his other campaign stories were tremendously
exaggerated. But this one, like his others, was also effective. Reagan made this speech in
“citizen press conferences” all over New Hampshire while campaigning in that state’s
Republican primary.
32
Although he didn’t receive the nomination, campaigning against an
incumbent Republican president – Gerald Ford – Reagan did win the primary in New
Hampshire. As a direct result of this victory, Reagan emerged as a serious rival to Ford, and as a
subsequent favorite to win the nomination in 1980.
33
28
On the culture of poverty thesis, its racial overtones, and its refutation, see Katz 1989.
29
Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, California Journal, December 1970, p. 332.
30
Ronald Reagan, Governor of California, “Saving the States from Bankruptcy,” May 1971, reprinted from Nation’s
Business. In Hoover Institution Archives, File: [RR Statements:] Welfare: 1971, Box 211, Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library (RRPL).
31
“ ‘Welfare Queen’ Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign,” New York Times, February 15, 1976, p. 51.
32
Ibid.
33
On the 1976 campaign for the presidency, and Reagan’s surprise win in New Hampshire, see Anderson 1990,
chapters 5 and 6.
Convention