Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:57:32.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Unearthing the Hidden Welfare State: Race, Political Attitudes, and Unforeseen Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2017

Timothy Callaghan  and
Adam Olson
Timothy Callaghan*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
Adam Olson
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Timothy Callaghan, Department of Health Policy and Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

This paper incorporates the role of race into our understanding of the hidden welfare state by exploring the implications of racialization of hidden welfare state programs for mass attitudes. We explain how traditional welfare programs have been racialized historically and the implications of that racialization on attitudes towards welfare programs. We then discuss how the same fate could befall hidden programs for the poor if “unearthed” as hidden welfare state scholars have suggested. Finally, we carry out an experiment racializing a hidden welfare state program in the same way that traditional welfare state programs have been racialized historically. Our analysis finds that only when the hidden welfare state program is described using traditional racial stereotypes, support for the program drops significantly among racially resentful. Our findings suggest that the inclusion of race into the hidden welfare state narrative alters our understanding of attitudes towards some of these programs.

Keywords

Hidden Welfare StateRacePublic OpinionEarned Income Tax Credit
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 63 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © The Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

AuClaire, Philip. 1984. “Public Attitudes Toward Social Welfare Expenditures.” Social Work 29 (2): 139–144. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/29.2.139 Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Huber, Gregory, and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.Com's Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis 20 (3): 351–368. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr057 (accessed June 19, 2015).Google Scholar
Brambor, Thomas, Clark, William Roberts, and Golder, Matt. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses.” Political Analysis 14 (1): 63–82.Google Scholar
Bucklin, R. Dorothy. 1939. “Public Aid for the Care of Dependent Children in Their Own Homes.” Social Security Bulletin 2 (4): 24–35.Google Scholar
Buhrmester, Michael, Kwang, Tracy, and Gosling, Samuel D.. 2011. “Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6 (1): 3–5. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691610393980 Google Scholar
Chen, Philip. G., Appleby, Jacob, Borgida, Eugene, Callaghan, Timothy H., Ekstrom, Pierce, Farhart, Christina E., Housholder, Elizabeth, Kim, Hannah, Ksiazkiewicz, Aleksander, Lavine, Howard, Luttig, Matthew D., Mohanty, Ruchika, Rosenthal, Aaron, Sheagley, Geoff, Smith, Brianna A., Vitriol, Joseph A., and Williams, Allison. 2014. “The Minnesota Multi-Investigator 2012 Pres-Idential Election Panel Study.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 14 (1): 78–104.Google Scholar
Cook, Fay Lomax and Barrett, Edith J.. 1992. Support for the American Welfare State: The Views of Congress and the Public. New York, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Curtin, Richard and Cowan, Charles D.. 1975. “Public Attitudes toward Fiscal Programs.” In 1972–1973 Surveys of Consumers, ed. Strumpel, B.. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 57–74.Google Scholar
DeSante, Christopher. 2013. “Working Twice as Hard to Get Half As Far: Race, Work Ethic, and America's Deserving Poor.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2): 342–356. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23496601 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Chris and de Rugy, Veronique. 2015. Tax and Budget Bulletin: Earned Income Tax Credit: Small Benefits, Large Costs (No. 73). Washington DC: The Cato Institute.Google Scholar
Faricy, Christopher and Ellis, Christopher. 2014. “Public Attitudes Toward Social Spending in The United States: The Differences Between Direct Spending and Tax Expenditures.” Political Behavior 36 (1): 53–76.Google Scholar
Federico, Christopher M. 2006. “Race, Education, and Individualism Revisited.” Journal of Politics 68 (3): 600–610.Google Scholar
Feldman, Stanley. 1988. “Structure and Consistency in Public Opinion: The Role of Core Beliefs and Values.” American Journal of Political Science 32 (2): 416–440.Google Scholar
Feldman, Stanley and Huddy, Leonie. 2005. “Racial Resentment and White Opposition to Race-Conscious Programs: Principles or Prejudice?” American Journal of Political Science 49 (1): 168–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00117.x Google Scholar
Fox, Cybelle. 2004. “The Changing Color of Welfare? How Whites’ Attitudes Toward Latinos Influence Support for Welfare 1.” American Journal of Sociology 110 (3): 580–625.Google Scholar
Galles, Gary M. 1995. Let's rein in the earned-income credit. The San Diego Union - Tribune, B.7.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 1996. ““Race Coding” and White Opposition to Welfare.” American Political Science Review 90 (3): 593–604.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 2012. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Chad A. 2007. Citizens and Paupers: Relief, Rights, and Race, from the Freedmen's Bureau to Workfare. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goren, Paul. 2001. “Core Principles and Policy Reasoning in Mass Publics: A Test of Two Theories.” British Journal of Political Science 31 (01): 159–177.Google Scholar
Goren, Paul. 2003. “Race, Sophistication, and White Opinion on Government Spending.” Political Behavior 25 (3): 201–220. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025121406460 Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2002. The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. and Pierson, P.. 2011. Winner-Take-all Politics: How Washington made the Rich Richer–and Turned its back on the Middle Class. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Hasenfeld, Yeheskel and Rafferty, Jane A.. 1989. “The Determinants of Public Attitudes Toward the Welfare State.” Social Forces 67 (4): 1027–1048.Google Scholar
Henry, P.J. and Sears, David O.. 2002. “The Symbolic Racism 2000 Scale.” Political Psychology 23 (2): 253–283. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00281 Google Scholar
Holmes, Natalie. 2012. Earned Income Tax Credit (eitc) Interactive and Resources. Washington, District of Columbia: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Holt, Steve. 2006. The Earned Income Tax Credit at Age 30: What We Know. Washington, District of Columbia: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Howard, Christopher. 1997. The Hidden Welfare State: Tax Expenditures and Social Policy in the United States. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Howard, Christopher. 2008. The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths About U.S. Social Policy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jencks, Christopher. 1992. Rethinking Social Policy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Sears, David O.. 1981. “Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism Versus Racial Threats to the Good Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40 (3): 414–431.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Sanders, Lynn M.. 1996. Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kluegel, James R. and Smith, Eliot R.. 1986. Beliefs about Inequality: Americans’ Views of What is and What Ought to be. New York, New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Leeper, Thomas J. and Mullinix, Kevin J.. 2015. What if you had done things differently? Testing the generalizability of framing effects with parallel experiments. Workshop on Innovations in Online Experiments, Nutfield College, Oxford, UK, 2015.Google Scholar
Lieberman, C. Robert. 1998. Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Maag, Elaine and Carasso, Adam. 2014. Taxation and the Family: What is the Earned Income Tax Credit? Tax Policy Center: Urban Institute; Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Mendelberg, Tali. 2001. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 2011. The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Myrdal, Gunnar. 1944. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. New York, New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark, Hurwitz, Jon, and Sniderman, Paul M.. 1997. “Racial Stereotypes and Whites’ Political Views of Blacks in the Context of Welfare and Crime.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (1): 30–60.Google Scholar
Quadagno, Jill. 1996. The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rector, Robert. 2016. “Reduce Fraud in the Earned Income Tax Credit.” In The Budget Book: 106 Ways to Reduce the Size and Scope of Government. The Heritage Foundation, 138–139.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1990. “Sustainable Social Policy: Fighting Poverty without Poverty Programs.” American Prospect 2: 58–70.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1991. “Targeting within Universalism: Politically Viable Policies to Combat Poverty in the United States.” In The Urban Underclass, eds. Jencks, C. and Peterson, P. E.. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution; The Brookings Institution, 411–436.Google Scholar
Soss, Joe. 2002. Unwanted Claims: The Politics of Participation in the U.S. Welfare System. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
The Committee On Ways And Means House Of Representatives. 1997. Hearing concerning the internal revenue service's 1995 earned income tax credit compliance study (No. Serial Set 105–26).Google Scholar
United States Government Accountability Office. 2005. GAO-05-690: Tax expenditures represent a substantial federal commitment and need to be reexamined. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-690 Google Scholar
United States Office of Management and Budget. 2013. Analytical perspectives: Budget of the U.S. government.Google Scholar
Williamson, John B. 1974. “Beliefs about the Motivation of the Poor and Attitudes Toward Poverty Policy.” Social Problems 21 (5): 634–648.Google Scholar
Winter, Nicholas. 2008. Dangerous Frames: How Ideas about Race and Gender Shape Public Opinion. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Zaldivar, R. A. 1995. FRAUD PLAGUES TAX BREAK // PROBE: Abuse of the earned income tax credit is costing taxpayers at least 1 billion dollars a year. Orange County Register, C.4.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Callaghan and Olson supplementary material

Appendix A

Download Callaghan and Olson supplementary material(File)
File 32.8 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Callaghan and Olson supplementary material

Appendix A

Download Callaghan and Olson supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 81.7 KB