"Welfare": differing connotations?

[YoungDemCA]

Hello all, hope you are having a good day (and if not, that's OK too: I won't judge. ).

I was wondering about how the word "welfare" seems to have a different connotation in other countries from the way it is currently used in the U.S. If I am not mistaken, "welfare" has a meaning in other countries that is similar to how it is used in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (i.e. "promote the general welfare&quot .

However, in the modern-day U.S., "welfare" has a connotation that is essentially the same as that of "the dole" in England (social spending and government assistance to the poor and underprivileged). Moreover, there is a (wrong, but still-powerful and all-too-common) perception that this type of spending only benefits the "undeserving" poor (i.e. those who are perceived as abusing the system, or "mooching" off of the "taxpayer.&quot and that most working-class and middle-class Americans are subsidizing "laziness" or "dependency."

I know that "welfare" in the U.S. has been heavily racialized (particularly by the Right, using coded - and sometimes, not-so-coded language), yet I do wonder if there is any political significance to the difference in connotation of the word "welfare" in America vs. much of the rest of the world.

What do you all think? Is there "something to this", or not?