Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy

309 Pages·1999·3.821 MB·English

by  Martin Gilens

h llmericans Ulelfare
Hate
Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion
A series edited by Susan Herbst and Benjamin I. Page
Illhy flmericans Bate Illelfare
RACE, MEDIA, AND THE POLITICS
OF ANTIPOVERTY POLICY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
*
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
0 1999 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1999
Paperback edition 2000
ISBN: 0-226-29364-5 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-226-29365-3 (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gilens, Martin
Why Americans hate welfare : race, media, and the politics of
antipoverty policy 1 Martin Gilens.
p. cm.-(Studies in communication, media, and public opinion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-29364-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Public welfare in mass media. 2. Racism in mass media. 3. Mass
media and public opinion-United States. 4. Racism-United States.
5. Public welfare-United States. 6. Public opinion-United States.
I. Title. 11. Series
P96.P842 U654 1999
070.4'493616-dc21 98-48866
CIP
@ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For Janet, my love

Contents
Preface
Introduction
The American Welfare State: Public Opinion
and Public Policy
Individualism, Self-interest, and Opposition to Welfare
Racial Attitudes, the Undeserving Poor, and
Opposition to Welfare
Assessing Alternative Explanations: Statistical Models of
Welfare Attitudes
The News Media and the Racialization of Poverty
Media Distortions: Causes and Consequences
Racial Stereotypes and Public Responses to Poverty
Beyond the Attitude Survey: Public Opinion and
Antipoverty Policy
The Politics of the American Welfare State
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Preface
T
he topics I explore in this book-why Americans hate welfare,
and what they would prefer to see in its place-are just a small
part of a much larger question: How should an affluent society
respond to poverty? For most of human history, most people struggled
just to obtain the basic necessities of life. But America at the turn of the
twenty-first century is among the richest societies ever to exist. Today
we possess the means to provide all our citizens not only with life's
necessities, but with material abundance that would have astounded
our nation's founders. Yet in the midst of this wealth live many who
suffer material deprivation. Millions of Americans lack sufficient food,
clothing, and shelter. A hundred thousand families with children are
homeless, and hundreds of thousands of poor families that do have
homes lack such basic amenities as indoor plumbing. According to gov-
ernment statistics, one out of five American children is living in pov-
erty-a proportion that is higher now than it was thirty years ago.
The pages that follow are not really about poor Americans, at least
not directly. My focus instead is on what Americans in general think
about the poor: their images of poverty, their beliefs about its causes,
and especially their notions of what the government should and should
not do in its efforts to help the poor. I care about the public's attitudes
toward welfare and poverty because I believe that these attitudes have
shaped (and continue to shape) government antipoverty policy. But I
also care about public attitudes toward welfare and poverty because I
think they tell us something important about the nature of our society
and the passions and concerns that animate Americans' political views.
Many of the findings in this book confirm what most people already