Why More White Americans Are Opposing Government Welfare Programs

Canada Goose Outlet One of canada goose coats on sale the reasons for this opposition, according to the report, is white Americans’ perceptions canada goose uk black friday that they might canada goose clearance be losing their financial and social status while people of color make gains in those areas. Canada Goose Outlet

Canada Goose online These researchers Robb Willer, a professor of sociology at Stanford University, and Rachel Wetts, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley canada goose have conducted other studies that linked racial bias and the Tea Party movement. Canada Goose online

Canada Goose sale While conducting this recent study about opposition to welfare, Willer and Wetts showed the respondents graphs they had fabricated. The fictional data demonstrated white Americans becoming a minority or showed the income of white Americans decreasing as the incomes of people of color increased. Canada Goose sale

buy canada goose jacket cheap The researchers wanted to canada goose factory sale understand how the behavior of white Americans shifted when they perceived different things even if untrue about how certain racial groups were faring. buy canada goose jacket cheap

canada goose black friday sale “We find evidence that welfare backlash among white Americans is driven in part by feelings that the status of whites in America is under threat,” Wetts told NPR. canada goose black friday sale

Despite those perceptions, other research has found that white people are the biggest beneficiaries of the government safety net. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, white people made up the the largest share at 52 percent of people lifted from poverty canada goose black friday sale by safety net programs, while black people made up less than a quarter of that share. When it canada goose outlet comes to receiving Medicaid, white people make up about 43 percent of recipients, Hispanics about 30 percent, African Americans 18 percent, with 9 percent identified as other, according to Wetts.

canada goose clearance I spoke with her about the findings and the implications of the new Canada Goose Parka research. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. canada goose clearance

buy canada goose jacket What was the most surprising finding? buy canada goose jacket

Canada Goose Parka Honestly, to me, it was this last finding.. We showed canada goose uk outlet them graphs of whites’ and minorities’ income trends and these were cheap Canada Goose made up. But in the racial threat condition, we showed them [also fabricated data] that whites’ incomes were declining. Canada Goose Parka

Canada Goose Jackets So I would think, rationally, that you should want to support programs that benefit whites in this condition, right? But we buy canada goose jacket cheap didn’t find that. We didn’t find that they wanted to support programs that benefit whites when whites’ incomes are declining. Instead, we found they wanted to cut programs that Canada Goose online they perceived as benefiting minorities. Canada Goose Jackets

canada goose store That is sort of contradictory to me. canada goose store

So is it just uk canada goose outlet that their “racial resentment” overtakes the ability for them to see that, you know, people of their demographic or their racial group also benefit canada goose uk shop greatly?

canada goose I guess I canada goose store would say that previous research shows that in American society, there’s this very strong idea of individualism. believing that people should just. work hard and that they can overcome all their circumstances [despite] our findings that this opposition to welfare was increasing during the Great Recession. So even in those moments when it’s very clear that there are large structural issues that are leading to people to be unemployed, there’s still a sense Canada Goose sale that someone [should] just be able to canada goose clearance sale pull Canada Goose Online themselves up by their bootstraps and not rely on government aid. Even though members of all racial and ethnic groups are using these programs, white Americans tend to perceive them as mostly benefiting African Americans. So, there’s a Canada Goose Coats On Sale misperception of who the primary beneficiaries are of these programs. canada goose

So this study cheap canada goose uk pulls from data from 2008, which is when Barack Obama was elected. Can you walk me through the correlation between politics and these findings?

canada goose coats In our first study, when we analyzed the nationally representative survey data, we show that white racial resentment rose beginning in 2008, and we argue that this was likely due to, again, this perceived threat to whites’ racial canada goose coats status caused by a sort of confluence of Barack Obama being elected the first non Canada Goose Outlet white president, and also the beginning of the Great Recession. So, you know, Obama’s election was an event with huge symbolic significance for racial relations, like people were talking at the time that we’d entered this [so called] post racial era. canada goose coats

cheap Canada Goose So for many people, we believe that they perceived this as a sign, that this is a sign of. relative political power decline for http://www.canadagoosesalesus.com whites at a moment of economic recession. [It] created this sense of racial threat that led to heightened racial resentment and heightened opposition to welfare among whites, even during this time of economic crisis. cheap Canada Goose

canada goose deals Do you think that the opposition to welfare by some white Americans is only going to get larger? canada goose deals

canadian goose jacket It’s hard to speculate on that, because there’s a lot that could happen. We only look at what we think is an important source of opposition to welfare. But only one. So there are other factors [besides] impact opposition to welfare. canadian goose jacket

canada goose coats on sale With Barack Obama gone and a new figure in uk canada goose the White House, it’s unclear what sort of impact that political development might canadian goose jacket have on whites’ sense of their status in society. So I think that’s an interesting venue for future research canada goose coats on sale.