povertician

English

Noun

povertician (plural poverticians)

(politics, derogatory) Someone who is paid to work with the poor, especially one who profits at the expense of the poor; A welfare worker.
- 1964 October 8, Donald I. Rogers, “Poverty War Youth Camps”, in The Gazette, Emporia, Kan., page 4:
  One of the “bold” as well as costly programs on the war on poverty and one which is being extolled from the hustings by professional povertician Sargent Shriver, is the reincarnation of the depression-born C. C. C., the Youth Job Corps.
- 1965 September 21, “Let’s Clean It Up”, in The Idaho Daily Statesman, 102nd year, number 58, Boise, Ida., page four:
  “This all leads,” Rep. Hansen says, “to everyone getting the money, except the poor, who get warm words of hope and encouragement from the administration, advice from Sargent Shriver (OEO director), honorable mention in the press, and short shrift from the paid “poverticians’.”
- 1966 September 21, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 89^th Congress, Second Session, volume 112, part 17, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, page 23609:
  Here is an example of a poverty stricken woman who had her hopes roused by this program, only to see the benefits directed toward the “povertician.”
- 1966 December 16, Tom Ethridge, “Mississippi Notebook: Hinds County Larger Than Newest United Nations Member, Barbados”, in The Clarion-Ledger, volume CXXIX, number 346, Jackson, Miss., page 14A:
  “Everyone gets the money except the poor,” Congressman Berry has complained. “The poor get warm words of hope and encouragement from the White House, advice from the bureaucrats and honorable mention in the press, but are short-changed by the “Poverticians” who are riding the gravy train.
- 1967, The Minority of One, page 23:
  The poverty program did not attempt to increase the purchasing power of the poor, but instead to create a vast new establishment (poverticians) to deal with their problems. These poverticians were to gain a considerable vested interest in perpetuating the illusion of a “War on Poverty.”
- 1967 November 17, “Toledano Covers Variety of Subjects: Speaker Says Missile Buildup on in Cuba”, in The Scranton Tribune, Scranton, Pa., page 9:
  The White House wants the War on Poverty, I guess it also wants the Poverticians for they’ll vote again next year.
- 1968 November 25, Nora Ephron, “On Haddad, Poor Haddad”, in New York, page 27:
  The business—which has made Haddad one of the country’s leading poverticians—is booming, so much so in fact that Haddad is in a quandary over whether to buy a company jet or merely a company Turboprop.
- 1969 November, S. E. Anderson, Negro Digest, volume XIX, page 6:
  Check out the poverticians and movement hustlers hovering around, cutting up folk for the best position to receive the piddling chumpchange they say they are “robbing” and “fooling” the Man for.
- 1997, Urban Society, page 162:
  Today’s “povertician” is yesterday’s ward heeler.