Words matter: deconstructing ‘welfare dependency’ in the UK

Should the dominant narratives of politicians such as Ian Duncan Smith influence our perceptions about the ‘poor’? Have ideologically underpinned debates portraying those on welfare as being lazy and having an easy life, become part of collective public perceptions? With 2016 marking the 40th anniversary of the publication of Raymond Williams’ Keywords, an interrogation of the taken-for-grantedness of specific words, Paul Michael Garrett demonstrates how there is a pressing scholarly and political need to question and interrogate focal words and phrases within the neoliberal lexicon. Here, he looks at ‘welfare dependency’.