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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and here are on Monday with Congress still not having passed the new coronavirus relief bill and President Trump having announced some executive actions that are not only constitutionally-questionable, it's very unclear how the money from his orders would get into your pocket in terms of extended unemployment and things like that. At the heart of the new debate over whether or not to extend unemployment benefits, is actually a very old debate between Republicans and Democrats about whether getting monetary benefits from the government is an American right or something to be ashamed of, whether getting help makes you a citizen or a leech.

Historically, in this country that stigma was reserved for poor black Americans. You've heard the term "Welfare queens," that derogatory and racist term used to refer to women who allegedly misuse or collect excessive welfare payments through fraud. Now, that shame and stigma is seeping out to tens of millions of additional Americans who are getting a taste of what it's like to be called lazy and entitled for not being able to work. Here's Senator Mitch McConnell at the end of July.

Senator Mitch McConnell: We should not be taxing somebody who's been stocking shelves for months so the government can pay her neighbor more than she makes to sit at home.

Brian: "She," he singles out and "stocking shelves," he singles out. With me now is WNYC reporter Karen Rouse. Her latest piece which is published on gothamist.com is called, How Shame And Stigma Influence The Debate Over Extending $600 A Week Pandemic Assistance. Hey, Karen, welcome back to the show.

Karen Rouse: Hi, Brian. Thank you.

Brian: How does the sense of shame get associated with collecting welfare? You write, it wasn't until the 1930s and no surprise race was involved.

Karen: In the 1930s, it was seen as the benevolent act to provide money for white women who were divorced or single with kids, widowed women. It gave them an opportunity to raise their children, but when you have black women asking for this same right, then it became stigmatized. You see, as you mentioned, this continued to happen over the decades with this whole caricature of the "welfare queen." This idea of this black mom with a lot of kids, single black mom. The idea is it's somebody who was getting something for nothing. This person who's sitting home getting something that they don't deserve.

Now, you see that carrying over. The person that is featured in the Gothamist article is a single white male, 33 years old, who is now feeling this sense of shame because he, like millions of other people who are getting this benefit are having to sit back and watch members of Congress, people in Washington debate really how they're going to eat in the next coming month. That really gets at dignity. When you're talking about food, being able to afford food.

It does bring the sense of shame and this idea that you're getting something that you don't deserve, especially, I think it's felt for those people who are now targeted because they're making more money or they were making more money with the $600 a week unemployment benefit than they were making just working because they were poorly paid or low paid.

Brian: Listeners, we want to open up the phones with Karen and take a few of your phone calls if this is resonating with you. Maybe you didn't even realize it until we brought it up and use the S-word, shame. Are you feeling a sense of shame or the other S-word, stigma, in receiving unemployment right now? Are those emotions new to you if you haven't been on unemployment in the past but the pandemic forced you on? Are you receiving unemployment benefits for the first time and are you struggling with how others see you? 646-435-7280, tell us your story. 646-435-7280. Do you see public benefit programs in a different light than maybe you did before in terms of the social safety net that the government should offer its citizens?

Maybe you weren't for, I don't know, Medicare for all before but now that you've lost your job and your health insurance through no fault of your own, you're rethinking this whole idea that health insurance should be tied to employment or maybe you're rethinking the idea of what's a living wage. Maybe you are making more money with unemployment than your previous job. Is that fair or as Karen indicated, as Congressman Hakeem Jeffries said on the show a couple of weeks ago, "This is a way to actually address the poverty wage that the American minimum wage is."

The federal minimum wage is just $7 and something an hour. What ways can you live now with a little more money maybe-- because $600 a week is not much money anyway, right? A little more money maybe than you were receiving before in a way that either causes shame or causes a light bulb to go off over your head in some way or another. 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280 Are you feeling shame, stigma, or anything else? Boy, Karen have our lines instantly exploded as soon as I put out the question which of course indicates the tremendous extent of the need out there. You're right that there's a shift that's happening in terms of how people think about unemployment. You want to talk about that?

Karen: Yes, I think so.

Brian: The parallels for the social justice movement.

Karen: Exactly. Yes, I think that just as like maybe a year ago you wouldn't have seen these middle-aged white families out there marching with Black Lives Matter signs. I think something's happened during this pandemic where now you see white people out there in the protests and middle-aged white people and middle-class white people. I think you see the same thing happening because many more people now are receiving unemployment benefits that weren't before. I think now there's just this understanding of just how frail our system is, the safety net, and what it is to be at need. I'm not surprised you're getting a lot of calls.

The story came out of another story that I did a few weeks back where I wrote about how employers were not able to get employees to come back to work because those employees were making more on unemployment. Another part of this is that they were able to stay home and be safe at the time of this virus spreading. After I wrote that story, I pretty much got dragged on Twitter from people who said, "This really points out how low people are being paid if they can get more money from unemployment."

There was another type of shaming going on of employers that "Why are you paying your employees so low that they're making more?" It was just very passionate feelings out there and I think like you said that this $600 a week has really opened up a discussion and exposed this idea of, "How do we value people?" It's not just how much is going to be put out, it's how do we value workers? What does this say about both our system and how we take care of people and how we think about what they're worth?

Brian: Let's hear what some listeners have to say. James in Norwalk. You're on WNYC. Hi James, thanks for calling in.

James: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I'm a 27-year-old male, a white male. I was working full time. I got laid off. I started collecting unemployment. I got that $600 benefit, I was lucky enough. I was making a little bit less than what I was making when I was employed. Talking to my family, pretty much I'm really the only Democrat in my family. Everyone's got pretty Republican and right-wing. I speak with them, they are saying how outrageous it was I wasn't making the same amount of money and how insane the employment amount is low and everything like that, but then at the same time they would criticize, they talk about not liking the whole troop of the "welfare queen" as you guess who's talking about.

It just struck me as how hypocritical a lot of people are about this whole situation. Fortunately, I would love to go back to work and I know a lot of people in my situation who would also love to go back to work but just can't. I think it's just unfair how there's this whole stigma around people who collect on unemployment and how it's the drain on the system when it's just the fact of the matter is most of these wages aren't livable on their own even to begin with.

Brian: James, thank you so much. Katherine in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi Katherine.

Katherine: Hello, Brian, so good to talk to you. I want to let everyone know how angry I am after I received this money. I've worked my whole life. I worked at The Home Depot because I couldn't get a job for a while. Then, I got a job in not for profit. I could actually pay my bills and save a little bit of money. I realized how poorly paid we all are now. My heart breaks when I walk into the grocery store knowing they're probably not making more than $20 an hour if they're even making that.

It's just frustrating. One is happy to pay taxes. I had an argument with someone who said, "If we weren't paying so many taxes," that's not the issue. The issue is the salary. We want to pay taxes. We want civilization. We want our garbage picked up. We want those things.

Brian: Katherine, thank you very much. Jessica in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jessica.

Jessica: Oh, my gosh. Hello. Can you hear me?

Brian: I can hear you just fine.

Jessica: Hi. Long time listener and first-time caller. I'm grateful to be on. I am a 28-year-old young adult living in Brooklyn and I had to leave my job. I had to go on short term disability a little over a year ago because I was dealing with it an undiagnosed chronic illness. I actually [unintelligible 00:11:26] on my unemployment before this pandemic hit, and then was incredibly grateful that I was able to continue receiving assistance thereafter because I was still really struggling to manage my health and dealing with a lot of shame and stigma especially among my really traditionally successful peers.

Brian: Can you talk about that part a little bit more? If you had an illness that's-- An illness is no reason to be ashamed. Why do you think it wound up feeling shame?

Jessica: I also think in addition to the shame and stigma around unemployment and around where we're supposed to be at certain stages of our life, there is also a huge amount of stigma around illness and disability. I think that our society is just incredibly [unintelligible 00:12:24]. I've struggled a lot to try and-- I've spent a lot of time trying to hide how sick I am and hide when I'm unable to do things and keep those struggles to myself. Looking for work, I really became restricted and the work that I can do and was just trying to find remote work before the pandemic hit as well. It was really difficult.

Brian: Now, you've got all this company out there. Jessica, thank you very much. Please call us again. We'll do one more. Sandra in Manasquan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sandra. We've got about 30 seconds for you.

Sandra: Hi, Brian. I just wanted to say, like everybody else unemployed, I applied for a COBRA and it's $700 a month. For my company, I only worked there for a few months before this happened, it's in food service. I applied for healthcare.gov to get a plan and I didn't even qualify to buy a plan. They actually were-- Now, it's in debate with Medicaid. Then, I felt shame.

That was the first time that I felt shame was when I couldn't even afford a healthcare plan, which in the past, I had to do what I would, but I don't even make enough money for that. It's a huge difference. I'm in a fortunate situation. I don't have children, but that was shameful. I don't know why distinctly was that because I guess it's true public assistance rather than the unemployment which everybody's going through.

Brian: Sandra, thank you very much. Wow. WNYC is Karen Rouse whose article about this as on Gothamist. We've got 30 seconds for the last thought. Such interesting stories. Anything you want to react to? It also makes me wonder, "Can any of this undeserved shame that people are experiencing influence the policy debate?"

Karen: I think it is. All your guests said that they're white and single, or several of them did. There are people who have been experiencing this for a long time, for years before this pandemic. Now, I think the fact that it's-- It's not a good thing that other people are experiencing shame, but it is raising questions about what we pay people. I think just like as we talked about with protests and the movements going on in terms of racial justice, it's an opportunity to also talk about how people are paid and influence that discussion in DC.

Brian: We have to leave it there with Karen Rouse. See her story on Gothamist, How Shame And Stigma Influence The Debate Over Extending $600 A Week Pandemic Assistance. Karen, thanks so much.

Karen: Thanks, Brian.

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