#Keep your government hands off my medicare series#
Willer and Wetts later did a series of experiments meant to test whether these two trends were related. That racial gap in support for welfare among the races persisted in 2012, even though all Americans began to oppose welfare in greater numbers at that time.
Starting in 2008, the study authors found, minorities showed more positive attitudes toward welfare, while whites’ attitudes held steady-even though recessions tend to increase support for government programs. This dynamic, the authors find, might be why opposition to welfare programs increased after 2008-when the economy was in tatters and the nation had elected a black president.įor the study, the authors-Rachel Wetts of UC Berkeley and Robb Willer of Stanford University-first analyzed survey data and found that “whites’ racial resentment rose beginning in 2008 and continued rising in 2012.” They note that though whites still had higher incomes, wealth, and representation in government than African Americans and Latinos during that time, “much public discourse about race in this period emphasized America’s increasing demographic diversity and the declining dominance of white Americans.” Some American whites, it seems, felt threatened by this. That, in turn, translates to a greater opposition toward welfare, because some people think welfare disproportionately benefits minorities. Here’s how it works, according to a paper published in the journal Social Forces: When whites feel their status in the racial hierarchy is threatened, they become more resentful of minorities. Aside from the infamous “keep your government hands off my Medicare” line, examples abound of poor people who hate government assistance for poor people.Ī new study explores a surprising psychological motivation that might be underpinning this opposition to welfare, at least among white people: racial resentment. It’s a pretty well-known trope at this point: People who rely on government assistance programs are often the ones who oppose welfare most vociferously.
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