But it's not just that poor people are imagined to be black—they're also commonly thought of as lazy. In 2008, only 37.6 percent of Americans considered black people hardworking, whereas 60.9 percent said the same of Hispanic people. For white people and Asian people, these percentages were 58.6 and 64.5, respectively. "To the extent that photo editors share these stereotypes," van Doorn writes, "it is no surprise that African Americans are over- and Hispanics are under-represented among the pictured poor."

One potential hole in van Doorn's study is that he analyzed weekly news magazines published in print, which makes sense when approaching the question for 1992, but made less sense by 2010. On top of that, Time and Newsweek's print staffs (likely a relatively old-school bunch) might not be reflective of today's entire media world. Still, some of the discrepancies between print publications' "pictured poor" and reality are so large—38 percent of welfare recipients are black, yet 80 percent of the people pictured alongside Newsweek's stories on welfare were black—that it's hard to imagine that digital publications would have shaken the habit entirely.

Van Doorn is interested in the relationships between the adjectives “poor,” “black,” and “lazy,” arguing in his paper that they must have something to do with why some Americans are opposed to generous welfare programs. A 1999 book that he leans on heavily, Why Americans Hate Welfare by Martin Gilens, made the case that supporting impoverished adults with cash payouts is unpopular because white voters see such efforts as primarily benefitting black people—whom they believe to be lazy and thus undeserving. If the media's portrayal of poverty were to reflect its actual diversity, perhaps voters would view social welfare programs more favorably. But that wouldn't change the underlying phenomenon: that many still believe skin color says something about work ethic.

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