Meanings
plural welfare queens
- USderogatoryA woman collecting welfare, seen as doing so out of laziness, rather than genuine need.
Welfare queens can't hold a candle to corporate kings in raiding the public purse.
1994, Marian Wright Edelman, Measure of Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours, Beacon Press, published 1994, →ISBN, page 1133 more examples
Miss Taylor, who is 40 years old, has been called Illinois’ “welfare queen” for allegedly defrauding Illinois and other states out of welfare payments while using a number of aliases.
1976 February 29, “‘Welfare Queen’ Loses Her Cadillac Limousine”, in The New York Times, →ISSNMartin isn't a typecast welfare queen sucking the nation dry, as Thomas seemed to suggest, but a single woman like his own mother, who worked low-paying jobs without benefits to support her family and turned to relatives for help.
1994, Lisa Jones, Bulletproof Diva: Tales of Race, Sex, and Hair, Anchor Books, published 1995, →ISBN[…] You need to go on back to the ghetto and make a bunch of ghetto babies and live off of welfare. I heard that you and your mama were welfare queens.”
2008, Earl Sewell, If I Were Your Boyfriend, Kimani TRU, published 2008, →ISBN, page 125
Origin
First appears c. the 1970s, popularized during Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign, but not used by Reagan himself.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
welfare queen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/welfare%20queen
“welfare queen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/welfare%20queen. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “welfare queen,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/welfare%20queen.
Source: welfare queen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.