Welfare policy at (the) stake: the Kansas Experiment’s attack on low-income mothers

Late twentieth-century American work-based welfare policies obscure structural causes of maternal poverty and force mothers to rely on private solutions to mitigate the effects of systemic inequity. In-depth sociological research reveals that social support diminishes and expectations for low-cost care work increase under work-based welfare policies. Expanding on this relationship, I present a socio-historical study of Governor Sam Brownback’s ‘Kansas experiment’ from 2011 to 2017, a conservative prototype for welfare reform designed to resurrect Reagan-era welfare cuts. While existing analyses of Brownback’s administration focus on the economic impact of his tax policies, my research illuminates the unexamined social policy outcomes for low-income mothers. This in-depth discourse-historical analysis presents critical parallels between language targeting low-income mothers during this shift and witchcraft accusations that condemned women to burn at the stake in sixteenth and seventeenth century Western Europe, as explored by Silvia Federici. I draw on the theory of affective economies to argue that not only are the contemporary welfare reforms a de facto witch hunt but that the accumulative effect of the interpretive repertoire of the witch and welfare recipient ensure that the social reproductive labour of women at all socio-economic levels are subject to patriarchal state control.