Can Incorrect Beliefs about the Racial Composition of Welfare and Unemployment Insurance Beneficiaries Be Changed?

Jeffrey Carpenter, Jakina Guzman, Peter Hans Matthews and Erin L. Wolcott

AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2025, vol. 115, 445-50

Abstract: Some argue that support for the social safety net in the United States is influenced by beliefs about the beneficiaries' race. Information treatments have the potential to change these beliefs, but for them to be policy relevant, their effects must last beyond the intervention. Our findings from two parallel experiments that exploit the different racialized histories of welfare and unemployment insurance indicate that racial beliefs do predict stated support for the racially stigmatized welfare program but not for the less stigmatized unemployment program. We also find that these beliefs are stable if uncorrected and that they can be persistently corrected.

JEL-codes: D83 I32 I38 J15 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20251124

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