Support For Social Welfare Programs Research Articles

It could happen to you: how perceptions of personal risk shape support for social welfare policy in the American States

AbstractIs public support for social welfare programs’ contingent on an individual’s exposure to risk? Prior work has examined whether tough economic times lead people to “reach out” (i.e. become more accepting of government expansion of social welfare programs) or “pull back” (i.e. become less supportive of welfare). However, these studies do not account for the conditional relationship between an individual’s exposure to risk and his or her risk orientation. Using new survey data, we find that an individual’s risk orientation moderates the relationship between risk exposure and public support for welfare spending. When individuals perceive exposure to economic risk, those who are risk averse are highly supportive of welfare expansion; those who are risk acceptant become less supportive. Broadly, these findings suggest that public support for welfare spending is contingent on whether an individual perceives exposure to risk and, if so, the individual’s propensity to tolerate that risk.

Intersectional motherhood: investigating public support for child care subsidies

ABSTRACTPast research shows that beneficiary characteristics shape public support for social welfare programs. Intergroup attitudes and stereotypes can determine whether a group is seen as deserving of aid or exploiting the system for personal gain. One’s own social group membership can also influence program support. Women, for example, tend to favor social welfare programs more than men, all else equal. In this paper, we investigate how race, gender, and class intersect to shape support for child care subsidies for working mothers among White Americans. Using a survey experiment that varies the characteristics of program beneficiaries, we consider (1) whether support for child care subsidies varies depending on the race and class of mothers receiving subsidies, and (2) whether women are generally more supportive of child care subsidies, in line with research on the gender gap in public opinion. The results indicate that racial cues affect White men and White women similarly, but that gender differences emerge in response to cues regarding recipient class.

Disability and the meaning of reproductive liberty

ABSTRACTThis article brings together three literatures: political theories of liberty, feminist theories on reproductive rights, and the disability studies literature on ableism. I engage with these debates to consider the meaning of a core political concept – liberty – by examining women with disabilities’ reproductive experiences and interests. In light of the dynamics of gender inequality and ableism, I seek to problematize the notion that reproductive freedom is synonymous with the negative right to privacy. Although governmental noninterference has allowed many women to gain control of their bodies and reproductive fates, the narrow focus on privacy – and the attendant issues of contraception and abortion – overlooks important dimensions of reproduction that are more likely to affect women with disabilities, including the structural factors that discourage disabled women from having children at all. The article concludes that feminist theorists should embrace a conception of positive liberty committed to actively dismantling ableist barriers to motherhood, including: inadequate access to assisted reproductive technologies; a lack of financial support for social welfare programs; and discriminatory attitudes that assume that disabled women are not “mother material.” Until these structural obstacles to “choice” are eradicated, genuine reproductive liberty will remain an elusive goal for many women with disabilities.

Into Thin Air: Making National Health Policy, 1939–45

From 1939-1945, Dr. J. J. Heagerty, the long-serving federal Director of Public Health Services, championed a national health insurance program which united curative and preventive services while avoiding the pitfalls of "state medicine." But his carefully designed plan was stymied by internal and external opposition. As Keynesian economics and central planning became dominant during the war, line departments were ignored or undercut in spite of growing public support for social welfare programs. Instead, health insurance was subsumed in the 1945 reconstruction proposals for political reasons and Heagerty's comprehensive vision foundered when the conference failed.

Social Welfare Attitudes and Ambivalence about the Role of Government

Evidence suggests that mistrust of government contributes directly to a lack of support for social welfare programs. An alternative explanation, however, is that many citizens are ambivalent concerning government and the role that it should play in society today and, as result, are less likely to support such programs. Based on our analysis of data from a 2004 telephone survey of Florida residents, we conclude that, first, ambivalent feelings concerning the federal, state, and local levels of government in the United States are fairly common; second, ambivalence has consequences for people's opinions on matters of public policy—specifically, those with conflicted feelings are less likely to endorse progressive action in the social welfare realm; third, self‐identified conservatives tend to be more ambivalent concerning government than liberals; and finally, the observed negative relationship between ambivalence and social welfare liberalism is especially pronounced among conservatives.

Compassionate Politics: Support for Old‐Age Programs Among the Non Elderly

This study examines the existence of compassionate support for old‐age programs such as Social Security and Medicare among the non‐elderly. Past research has focused on merit and equality as a basis for support of social welfare programs by examining views of recipients’ deservingness; in contrast, this study considers the extent of program support based on recipients’ perceived need. Analysis of data from the 1984 National Election Study and from a local survey (Suffolk County, New York, 1989) shows that non‐elderly individuals who view older people as financially impoverished are more likely to support government benefits for the aged. Moreover, compassionate support for old‐age programs is distinct from liberal ideology; indeed, political conservatives, not liberals, are most likely to support such programs out of compassion for older people, a finding at odds with Sniderman’s (Sniderman & Carmines, 1997) notion of principled conservatism. The analysis also revealed that response to elderly need does not convey the effects of long‐term and family‐based interests; this result substantiates that support of old‐age programs can be considered as other‐regarding (i.e., reflecting a concern for individuals that is unrelated to one’s personal circumstances). Short‐term and long‐term interests tend to eclipse rather than promote compassionate support of old‐age programs, consistent with the findings of traditional research on self‐interest.

The Humanitarian Foundation of Public Support for Social Welfare

We explore the impact of prosocial orientations on a domain of American public opinion that has puzzled many-attitudes toward social welfare policies. We focus on the orientation of humanitarianism, i.e., a sense of obligation to help those in need, and find that this value can explain support for a wide variety of social welfare policies. We argue that humanitarianism is an important element of the American sociopolitical ethos, although it has received little attention in the public opinion literature. We contrast humanitarianism with egalitarianism and show that these dispositions lead people to support distinctive sets of policies that constitute different types of welfare state. While egalitarianism causes people to embrace policies that mandate an extensive economic role for the government, humanitarianism is associated with more modest policies that seek to address the problems of the needy. Support for these more modest policies has generally been much greater in the United States than support for more invasive policies that seek to tinker with the free market. Thus, we argue that humanitarianism provides a better explanation for public opinion toward welfare in the United States than egalitarianism. We discuss the implications of these findings for public opinion research. p ublic support for social welfare programs in the United States has never been easy to understand. On the one hand, Americans are deeply suspicious of an expansive government and strongly committed to the principles of economic self-reliance and laissez-faire capitalism, factors that erode support for a welfare state (Free and Cantril 1968; McClosky and Zaller 1984). On the other hand, public opinion surveys have generally registered considerable support for specific social welfare programs (Cook and Barrett 1992; Free and Cantril 1968, Kluegel and Smith 1986; McClosky and Zaller 1984; Shapiro and Young 1989), even on the eve of the extensive welfare reform of 1996 (Weaver, Shapiro, and Jacobs 1995). We explore here the question of why there is public support for social welfare programs despite Americans' deep misgivings about the idea of welfare. We answer this question through an analysis of Americans' sociopolitical values and their relationship to support for a wide variety of social welfare programs.' Value-based approaches to understanding welfare policy support are not new (Bobo 1991; Feldman 1988; Kluegel and Smith 1986; McClosky and Zaller 1984), but we depart from the past research by