Is welfare mom an insult I wasn't aware of? Assuming someone has shoddy clothes because they can't afford better seems reasonable to me. It would be insulting only to imply that they're wasting their money and neglecting important things on purpose.

Edit: I mean I'm aware of 'welfare queen' as an insult but I've never seen 'welfare mom' have that same meaning, or anything other than 'mom on welfare'. And when you're talking about socioeconomic status 'welfare' doesn't have to be quite literal, just signifying a level of income.

I think the term "welfare mom" creates a 'figure'. It is baking the 'welfare' part into her idenity as a mother and seems distinct from just a mother who happens to be claiming welfare.

This is used in race studies but also class studies for instance 'chav' in the UK and your use works much the same way. It means you are identifying someone in a way that it is most likely they would not identify themselves.

I think it's fair to bake economics into their identity when the conversation is solely about economics, and not about specific people.

I would not really call it a issue of economics, since you are assuming someone elses economic situation it becomes a social issue.

You are matching your perception of someone with your pre-existing notions of them - typifying them in a sense. There are so many things to consider, really.

If you see someone in a Lamborghini, you might assume they are rich. But they may in fact be massively in debt. Therefore the analysis becomes a social one - about there access to funds or cars and not necessarily related to their economic status.

If you see a mother with a phone you think she couldn't / shouldn't be able to afford (I realise they used this example as a past belief but may as well use it). The phone could have been a gift, it could have been won - there are so many factors that you are reducing to one.

If you see one, it might have been a gift or won. If you see 10 out of 20 with them, it becomes reasonable to assume it was a purchase.

The point of identifying a trend is to reduce the factors. If there isn't in fact a trend, that's when you look very closely at the individual person, or that's the point where you embarrassedly drop the subject because you made a false correlation.

Side note: I consider you rich if you can make payments on expensive-enough things, even if your debt is greater than your assets.

I wrote a helpful answer. Then I re-read your question Is welfare mom an insult I wasn't aware of?. Then I realized you and the OP have the same condition. You mean nothing ill, but you just don't get it.

I have met women whose goal in life is to become a single mother, with the government as the breadwinner. (And then to have more children, since pay-out rises in proportion to number of children, and "being thrifty" can leave money free per-child, so the more children you have, the more money you keep.)

If "welfare mom" was an insult, it would probably refer to that.

In which nation does the pay-out rise in proportion to the number of children? It must be a massive payout, since in countries like the UK and the US it costs far more to maintain a child than the welfare payment granted.