Karen M. Tani

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Welfare and Rights Before the Movement: Rights as a Language of the State

122 Yale L.J. 314 (2012). In conversations about government assistance, rights language often emerges as a danger: when benefits become “rights,” policymakers lose flexibility, taxpayers suffer, and the poor lose their incentive to work. Absent from the discussion is an understanding of how, when, and why Americans began to talk about public benefits in rights terms. This Article addresses that...