Being "Less Than": A New Theory of Welfare Stigma & Its Consequences

Background/Purpose: Countless scholarly works document the existence of “welfare stigma.” The idea that the poor - particularly those who seek help from public programs - face negative attitudes from and poor treatment by others has existed at least as far back as the sixteenth century English Poor Laws and is connected to core American values of individualism and personal responsibility. Despite its frequent use, “welfare stigma” is under-theorized and inconsistently defined and measured, resulting in a breadth, but not depth, of knowledge about the role stigma plays in the lives of low-income individuals and in the choices they make regarding program use. Based on in-depth interviews with 75 individuals living in/near poverty, I draw on respondents’ poverty/welfare discourse, as well as on existing theoretical and empirical works about stigma, to develop a more nuanced theory of welfare stigma.

Methods: Initial recruitment was conducted through Head Start programs in four distinct communities, with additional respondents recruited by referral. My sample (n=75) was predominantly female, approximately equal in the number of white and black respondents (10% other races/ethnicities), and ranged in income from zero to just over $3,000 per month. All had children under age 18. I conducted two interviews with each respondent using an active interview approach, grounded in a constructionist ontology and interpretive epistemology. Topics included experiences with public programs; perceptions of government, “welfare,” and poverty; and household demographics. Interviews were analyzed using a hermeneutic perspective, accounting for both the text of the interviews and their broader context. Multiple rounds of coding were conducted.

Results: Whereas previous research explores potential differences between those who recognize welfare stigma and those who do not, my analysis leads to a more nuanced theory, distinguishing between stigma’s existence and its consequences. All of my respondents recognized the existence of welfare stigma; they knew they were marked as lazy, weak, and immoral simply by being poor and seeking help. Respondents varied considerably, however, in how they interpreted and dealt with the consequences of this stigma, including the treatment faced in public program offices; the need to “manage” stigma in day-to-day life; the treatment faced when/if stigma became apparent to others; and finally, the impact of all of this on one’s sense of self. The experience of stigma’s consequences varies depending on social context and self-perception.

Implications: Recognizing the nuanced consequences that stigma bears for people’s lives allows us to better understand why certain public anti-poverty programs are more associated with stigma than others, as well as how eligible individuals make choices about program use. The EITC, for example, requires less stigma management, because its use is not readily apparent to others, whereas SNAP often entails poor treatment from case workers and public display of one’s financial circumstances, both of which may negatively impact one’s sense of self. The theory developed in this paper highlights the need for research that more accurately measures welfare stigma and for policy and practice that reduce the consequences of stigma, even if they cannot eliminate its existence.