White America's racial resentment is the real impetus for welfare cuts, study says

[DonViejo]

By Caitlin Dewey
May 30 at 8:00 PM

White Americans are increasingly critical of the country’s social safety net, a new study suggests, thanks in part to a rising tide of racial resentment.

The study, conducted by researchers at two California universities and published Wednesday in the journal Social Forces, finds that opposition to welfare programs has grown among white Americans since 2008, even when controlling for political views and socioeconomic status.

White Americans are more likely to favor welfare cuts when they believe that their status is threatened and that minorities are the main beneficiaries of safety net programs, the study says.

The findings suggest that political efforts to cut welfare programs are driven less by conservative principles than by racial anxiety, the authors conclude. T hat also hurts white Americans who make up the largest share of Medicaid and food-stamp recipients. President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have proposed deep cuts to both programs.

“I think our research is very relevant to politics,” said Rachel Wetts, a doctoral candidate in sociology at UC Berkeley and the lead author of the new research. “My main hope here is that people take a step back, look at what these sorts of programs do for the poor, and think about what’s driving opposition to them.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/30/white-americas-racial-resentment-is-the-real-impetus-for-welfare-cuts-study-says/

[Wounded Bear]

1. The people who already know this are being shut out of the process...

[muntrv]

2. More cutting off the nose to spite the face.

[Cary]

3. The fact of the matter is that helping people helps us all

But you can't convince those people of that fact. Those people don't want the truth. Those people want to resent.

[gollygee]

4. I'm only surprised this required a study

White people as a whole loved the social safety net until it started including people of color. Since then, most white people haven't liked it. Not a coincidence.

[ck4829]

5. And when THEIR welfare is cut, it's "because all the lazy minorities abused it"

Not because of their votes.

[empedocles]

6. Racial 'resentment'

Jim Crow pols were well aware of, and quoted, of the need of poor whites to be 'superior' to blacks.

[Hoyt]

7. Hardly surprising. Worked for a state Medicaid agency 40 years ago. White folks who were applying

for help for the first time, were often critical of "those people" who they said don't deserve help. But they damn sure were glad when they got approved (after all, they felt they deserved it).

Basically, adults don't get approved for Medicaid until their illness has made them destitute. Until they were at that point, they felt Medicaid was a give away to people who didn't deserve it. Once approved and receiving some semblance of healthcare, they were a bit more understanding of the plight of poor and sick people.

I still believe that everyone should be required to go to a Dialysis Center at 5:30 in the morning and see the people who have to get up 3 days a week, lie there with their blood being filtered for 4 to 6 hours and then be hauled out because they are really sick, weal, often have had leg(s) amputated, etc. Christ, they'd have an appreciation for what the social safety net is all about. Some time in a hospice or hospitals would be good too.

[dameatball]

9. Agreed. Also, mental health facilities have a large percentage of Medicaid patients..

[SWBTATTReg]

10. Well said. Too bad in today's world we have to keep defending these social nets...nt

[RandySF]

8. I didn't need a study to tell me that.

[RandomAccess]

11. Because --

[Orsino]

12. 1981 called; it wants its duh back. n/t

[dembotoz]

13. always like to ask "who would jesus starve"

it cuts thru a bunch of bullshit

[BumRushDaShow]

14. But whites are the biggest users of it because they are the majority of the population.

And the irony is (actually not ironic at all), the GOP KNOWS those stats, so they try to shield the very ones who would be harmed the most (whites) by attempting to carve out "exceptions" for them in order to micro-target minorities (see what Michigan was originally going to do).