Attitudes Towards Welfare and Use of Benefits: Evidence from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Longitudinal Study

Background and Purpose

Many households in the United States (U.S.) do not take advantage of benefit programs for which they are eligible. Estimates of take-up rates range from 28% for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash benefits to 84% for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). Stigma has been identified as a potential factor for incomplete take-up. We use longitudinal data to examine relationships between people’s experiences and opinions of welfare and how these opinions are associated with subsequent material hardship.

Methods:

Our data come from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which recruited 4,898 new parents in 20 large cities in the U.S. and followed them for approximately 15 years. Our sample is limited to mothers who were surveyed in all 6 waves of data collection (N=2,530). In Wave 4, respondents were asked eight questions eliciting their opinions about welfare. In each wave, they were also asked whether they had received benefits in the past year from TANF/welfare. We constructed measures for whether mothers had received these benefits by Wave 4, and also whether they received them in the period after Wave 4. The average material hardship score across Waves 5 and 6 was calculated using eleven questions related primarily to food and housing insecurity. We used logistic regressions to test associations between prior experiences of welfare and opinions about welfare at Wave 4. We then assessed how these attitudes towards welfare were associated with subsequent take-up of welfare benefits and experiences of material hardship. All regressions included controls for mothers’ race/ethnicity, education level, and their Wave 4 age, marital status, and poverty level.

Results:

By wave 4, 60% of respondents had received welfare benefits. Those who had received welfare benefits had statistically significantly lower odds of believing that “welfare makes you work less”, that “welfare discourages pregnant women from getting married” and that it “encourages babies before marriage.” However, receipt of welfare benefits was associated with higher odds of saying that “the application process is humiliating” (OR=1.32, 95% CI: [1.02 1.71], P=0.03) and that the “rules take away personal freedom.” (OR=1.37, 95% CI: [1.06 1.78], P=0.02). We find suggestive evidence that believing that the application process is humiliating was associated with lower subsequent use of welfare benefits (OR=0.80, 95% CI: [0.63 1.04], P=0.10). Moreover, those who believed that the rules take away person freedom had higher material hardship scores in the following waves (B=0.26, 95% CI: [0.08.44], P=0.01).

Conclusion and Implications:

Compared to those who had not experienced welfare, respondents who had received benefits generally had more positive views about welfare impacts but viewed the process of participation more negatively. Moreover, there is some evidence that these negative beliefs about program participation are associated with lower subsequent uptake of welfare benefits and with reduced material well-being. A better understanding of factors that influence people’s beliefs about welfare and how they affect behavior could improve efforts to increase use of government benefits and thereby reduce material hardship.