ABSTRACT
The United States has seen its sovereignty on welfare rights challenged by the neoliberal rhetoric of ending welfare as we know it. The prevailing political argument was that social policies create work disincentives and this in turn traps many people in the state of dependency that exacerbates poverty. At the individual level, the argument was such that long-term welfare recipients have psychological barriers that put them in weak positions vis-à-vis the labor market. Unable to secure stable employment, they end up settling for welfare checks and government subsidies and continue to abuse the system by staying in the state of welfare dependency.
