Racism and Welfare Policy in America
In: Social science quarterly, Band 57, Heft 4, S. 718-730
ISSN: 0038-4941
Sources of political support are examined for the public welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Race is considered an important element in perceptions of the welfare poor, & racial attitudes are hypothesized to be causally related to support for welfare in the US. The linkage between race & welfare policy is assessed in two contexts: (1) At the mass opinion level, using the 1973 National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey, public support for welfare spending is found to be more strongly related to measures of racism than to general domestic liberalism. (2) At the state level, race variables, % black & a civil rights scale of state laws, are found to correlate more highly with average AFDC payments & other measures of welfare policy than do any other class of variables including environmental variables, political variables, & governmental liberalism on nonracial issues. An awareness of the importance of institutional racism is crucial for a full understanding of public welfare policies in the US. 4 Tables. AA.
