Resisting the Culture of Poverty Narrative: Perspectives of Social Assistance Recipients

The assumption that “welfare dependency” is passed from generation to generation is persistent in public attitudes. We explore intergenerational transmission of social assistance through perceptions of those in receipt of social assistance for more than one generation through data drawn from interviews with 31 participants from Hamilton, London and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We explore qualitatively the meanings participants assign to receipt of social assistance and their views of intergenerational transmission. Recipients were found to resist notions of intergenerational transmission for themselves, even as they use a deserving/undeserving standard to distinguish between responsible and irresponsible use of income support for others.