Word.ws English Dictionary

welfare queen

welfare queen noun: a woman collecting welfare, seen as doing so out of laziness, rather than genuine need.

Noun

welfare queen (plural welfare queens)

  1. (US, derogatory) A woman collecting welfare, seen as doing so out of laziness, rather than genuine need.
    • 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, →ISSN
    • Martin 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

Examples of welfare queen in a sentence

  • 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 113:
  • 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:

Forms of welfare queen

pluralwelfare queens

Origin of welfare queen

First appears c. the 1970s, popularized during Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign, but not used by Reagan himself.

Questions about welfare queen

What does welfare queen mean?
Welfare queen means a woman collecting welfare, seen as doing so out of laziness, rather than genuine need.
How do you use welfare queen in a sentence?
Welfare queens can't hold a candle to corporate kings in raiding the public purse.
What part of speech is welfare queen?
Welfare queen is a noun.
What is the plural of welfare queen?
The plural of welfare queen is welfare queens.

Words near welfare queen in the dictionary

  1. welfare mothers
  2. welfare parasite
  3. welfare parasites
  4. welfare princess
  5. welfare princesses
  6. welfare queen
  7. welfare queens
  8. welfare rat
  9. welfare rats
  10. welfare state
  11. welfare stater

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: welfare queen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “welfare queen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/welfare_queen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.