Wage Erosion, Economic Assessments, and Social Welfare Opinions

Jason Barabas

JCPR Working Papers from Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research

Abstract: Severe wage erosion and rising income inequality during the 1980s and 1990s should have accentuated feelings of self-interest, retrospection, and personal economic hardship among certain socioeconomic subgroups. This study uses data from National Election Study surveys between 1984 and 1994 to show the extent to which spending preferences for Food Stamps and Social Security as well as feelings toward poor people and people on welfare are a function of national, personal, retrospective, and prospective economic assessments. The results indicate that even while controlling for other demographic factors, subjective changes in economic assessments affect social welfare preferences. Negative economic assessments, particularly national and retrospective assessments, increase support for Food Stamps spending and warm feelings toward people on welfare. However, the model does not explain progressively more variance over time, and the coefficients do not increase in magnitude as initially expected due to a likely disconnection between economic unrest and responsibility for those circumstances.

Date: 1998-11-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:jopovw:56

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