{"id":53316,"date":"2013-01-09T13:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=53316"},"modified":"2013-10-31T04:40:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:40:13","slug":"who-benefits-from-government-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/01\/09\/who-benefits-from-government-programs\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Benefits from Government Programs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As politicians negotiated regarding the fiscal cliff, they debated whether to cut social programs aimed at alleviating poverty and deprivation. \u00a0Most of us imagine that these programs help a minority of the population. \u00a0In fact, the\u00a0Pew Research Center<\/a> reports that more than half of the population has received government benefits from one of the six most well-known programs:<\/p>\n

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This isn’t the so-called 47% that Romney claimed would vote for a Democrat no matter what. \u00a0In fact, people who\u00a0received\u00a0one of these six benefits were only slightly more likely to vote Democratic:<\/p>\n

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In fact, receiving benefits is pretty well spread out among the population. Except for people over 65, there seems to be significant consistency in the receipt of at least one benefit:<\/p>\n

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Notably, these programs also go to help the poor, women (largely because they end up single with young children), and people in rural areas.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, many of us who have benefited from targeted government programs (“targeted” because we all benefit from programs like, oh, transportation initiatives and environmental protection and [insert dozens more here]) don’t know that we do. \u00a0In a previous post, we showed that\u00a0large proportions of people who’ve benefited from social programs don’t recognize that they have<\/a>\u00a0unless their thinking is sparked by asking them about specific programs. \u00a0(It’s kind of like responding “No I don’t do drugs” and then being asked specifically about marijuana and saying, “Oh yeah, well that one I guess!”).<\/p>\n

Since it is indeed the majority of Americans who benefit from targeted programs, it shouldn’t be too hard for politicians to find it in their hearts to support these programs. \u00a0That 57% of conservatives and 52% of Republicans have used them suggests that the political right is more interested in purporting an ideology than serving its constituency.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, they realize that a certain proportion of benefit recipients also believe that the government “does not have the responsibility to care for those who cannot care or themselves.” About a third of people who hold onto this principle have used benefits:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It seems that data like this might be very useful for what we really need: an educational campaign designed to help Americans understand what social programs do and who benefits from them. \u00a0 Maybe then we could have sensible policy discussions.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As politicians negotiated regarding the fiscal cliff, they debated whether to cut social programs aimed at alleviating poverty and deprivation. \u00a0Most of us imagine that these programs help a minority of the population. \u00a0In fact, the\u00a0Pew Research Center reports that more than half of the population has received government benefits from one of the six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,29,36,252,85,304,693,76],"class_list":["post-53316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-class","tag-economics","tag-healthmedicine","tag-politics","tag-the-state","tag-public-opinion","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53316"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58060,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53316\/revisions\/58060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}