Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform

6. Racial Context, Public Attitudes, and Welfare Effort in the American States

chapter 6 Racial Context, Public Attitudes, and Welfare Effort in the American States martin johnson For decades, social scientists have recognized a connection between the politics of race and welfare policy. Researchers consistently ‹nd a strong relationship between the size of a state’s minority population and its generosity to social welfare recipients (Howard 1999). States with larger proportions of minorities tend to be less generous in extending bene‹ts to welfare recipients (Wright 1976). In a somewhat different research setting, students of public opinion and political psychology have demonstrated that at the individual level, feelings white Americans express about the minorities they perceive to be the main recipients of welfare bene‹ts in›uence their support for these programs (Gilens 1998; Pef›ey, Hurwitz, and Sniderman 1997). While scholars have suggested that these lines of research, with their conceptual similarities, must be connected (as Fording discusses in chapter 3 of this volume), it has not been until recently that we have been able to assess how they might ‹t together. This chapter extends previous work investigating the in›uence a state’s racial composition has on white attitudes about minorities and welfare spending, and how these attitudes subsequently affect state welfare programs (Johnson 2001). Aggregate white attitudes about minorities represent a facet of public opinion distinct from their judgments of the appropriate scope of welfare spending and mass political ideology. 151 ⠂ State policymakers are sensitive to these aspects of public opinion, with attitudes about welfare in›uencing the reduction of welfare rolls in the states and racial attitudes affecting the amount of support program bene‹ciaries receive. Linkages between Public Opinion and Policy in the States From the early work of Miller and Stokes (1963) to more recent scholarship on representation, much evidence connects public opinion and government output in the United States. In particular, Erikson, Wright, and McIver (1993) demonstrate that the general ideological orientation of mass publics in the states in›uences the types of policies their governments adopt. Beyond identifying this general connection between public opinion and policy outputs, however, research has not extensively explored the effect speci‹c facets of public opinion have on public policy in the American states. Part of the problem has been a lack of suitable public opinion data collected at the state level. For more than a decade, researchers have had access to a well-constructed, demonstrably stable and reliable measure of mass ideology, but little data on other elements of public opinion in the states. Recent work building on the strategy Erikson , Wright, and McIver (1993) used to gauge state ideology and partisanship has provided researchers access to measures of speci‹c public preferences and attitudes in the American states (Brace et al. 2002). Similarly , Norrander (2001) has constructed measures of aggregate state-level attitudes about the death penalty, abortion, and several other policy areas using public opinion data from the National Senate Election Study. Given what we have learned about the general relationship between public opinion and policy, I expect policymakers to be sensitive to other mass attitudes expressed by the majority of their constituents. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS), I am able to explore how public opinion among the racial majority of American states has in›uenced welfare programs and reform in the states. If the psychological relationship between race and welfare manifests itself in aggregate public opinion, and this public opinion is represented in the policy-making process as we might expect, interstate variation in these attitudes could help explain variation in state welfare policies. This is particularly important given the role states have played in administering programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and their increased responsibilities Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform 152 during the recent transition to its successor, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Context, Contact, and Attitudes about Race and Welfare Since the time of V. O. Key’s (1949) in›uential study of the American South, a great deal of evidence indicates the racial composition of a polity in›uences the racial attitudes of its residents, particularly the racial attitudes of majority group members about minorities. This “group threat” hypothesis suggests that when a minority group constitutes a small fraction of a population, it poses only a small threat to the interests of the majority racial group. Increased numbers imply increased threat—a minority more competitive in the economy and in politics. This increased threat leads to increased animosity toward minorities among those...