Once Racialized, Now “Immigrationized”? Explaining the Immigration-Welfare Link in American Public Opinion

Abstract

Recent research claims that American public opinion about welfare, long racialized, has become “immigrationized,” or formed on the basis of people’s feelings about immigration. However, the evidence to date is incapable of ruling out two alternative explanations for the immigration-welfare link. Attitudes toward immigrants and welfare recipients may instead be linked because both are shaped by the broadly ethnocentric dimension of generalized social conservatism, an orientation that fosters animosity toward a wide variety of stigmatized out-groups. They may also be correlated because stereotypes about immigrants’ use of welfare are salient in opinions about immigration. This paper scrutinizes the theoretical underpinnings of each competing model and reports on a series of placebo tests, observational studies, and survey experiments designed to assess them. The results of these studies raise doubts about the centrality of immigration attitudes in American public opinion about welfare and bolster the two alternative explanations for the immigration-welfare link.