Disability Stereotypes and Support for Redistribution in the United States

• In Event: Disability Representation and Policy Views

Abstract

A large literature in political behavior finds that citizens’ attitudes toward welfare and other redistributive policies are most powerfully shaped by their beliefs about welfare recipients. In advanced democracies, the overwhelming majority of welfare spending is dedicated to groups stereotypically considered deserving of assistance - such as the elderly and people with disabilities. However, few studies have examined how beliefs about the share of welfare spending dedicated to such groups shapes attitudes toward redistributive policies. Addressing this gap, this paper examines how correcting misperceptions about the demographic composition of welfare recipients shapes attitudes toward government redistribution. In particular, we examine how factual information cues about the share of total welfare spending allocated to people with disabilities, and the share of welfare recipients with disabilities, shapes attitudes toward the legitimacy of government redistribution. In a second experiment, we examine how support for disability welfare changes in response to information cues about the lifetime probability of acquiring a disabling impairment or condition.
Keywords: Disability, welfare, survey experiment, public policy

Authors

• Jac Michael Larner, Cardiff University

• Joshua Thorp, University of Michigan