In this research spotlight, a study by Sarah Bruch, Marcia Meyers, and Janet Gornick focuses attention on a seldom-discussed axis of inequality in the US: variation in social safety net policies across the 50 states.
In recent years, inequality has received an extraordinary amount of attention in political, policy, and academic circles. In the United States, this attention has been focused almost exclusively on the country as a whole, and most often on income inequality across households. A new study focuses attention on a different axis of inequality: inequality in social provisions — such as income, food, and health assistance policies — which vary widely, in funding and implementation, across the 50 states. How disparate are these safety net policies, and what are the effects of those disparities?
The effects have been significant, as “The Consequences of Decentralization: Inequality in Safety Net Provision in the Post – Welfare Reform Era,” a 2018 study by Sarah K. Bruch, Marcia K. Meyers, and Janet C. Gornick published in the Social Service Review, shows. “State-to-state policy variation in social and health assistance is rarely conceptualized as a form of inequality per se,” the authors write. “In our view, that is precisely how it should be viewed.”
In their study, the authors examined cross-state inequality in safety net programs from 1994 to 2014. They assessed whether policies that are more decentralized are more variable in terms of generosity, a measure of spending per recipient, and in inclusion, the percentage served among the “potentially needy” (that is, persons who are financially needy and considered broadly in the targeted category). They also analyzed whether the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, which changed state discretion over certain safety net programs, has led to increased or decreased variability in those programs.
The researchers studied 10 federal-state programs that account for a large share of the safety net for low-income or unemployed adults and their dependents: cash assistance (Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), food assistance (Food Stamps, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), child health insurance (Medicaid and Child Health Insurance Program), child support enforcement, child-care subsidies, early childhood education (Head Start and state pre-K programs), Unemployment Insurance, targeted work assistance, child disability assistance (Supplemental Security Income), and state income taxes for families at the poverty line.
To examine the extent of cross-state inequality in what is provided to individuals and households in need, the researchers created a data set — the State Safety Net Policy (SSNP) data set — that includes comparable measures across programs and over time. SSNP data are assembled from publicly accessible state and federal administrative records, secondary sources, and original population estimates calculated using the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (the main income survey in the United States).
The researchers found that, in 2014, these programs varied across states both in generosity and in inclusion. In generosity, the greatest variation is in the three programs over which state control of funding was highest: cash assistance, state income taxes, and targeted work assistance. In contrast, the two programs with the least variation in generosity were either largely or entirely federally funded, and subject to limited state discretion over benefit levels: food assistance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). As for inclusion, the researchers found even greater inequality across states, with seven of the 10 programs showing even more cross-state variation than with respect to generosity.
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The effects of PRWORA — which President Bill Clinton famously credited with having “ended welfare as we know it” — on cross-state inequalities are complex. In term of generosity, PRWORA increased inequality in one program (targeted work assistance), yet decreased inequality in another (SSI). Regarding inclusion, PRWORA increased inequality in cash assistance, preschool/early education, and child care, yet decreased inequality in child support and child health insurance.
“The most striking finding of our analysis is the extent and persistence of geographic inequality,” the researchers conclude. “Questions of state (and local) discretion and the relations between federal and state governments are centrally implicated in social welfare policy debates and should likewise be examined as centrally important aspects of social welfare policy research.”
Footnote:
The original journal article by Bruch, Meyers, and Gornick was awarded the 2019 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize, which recognizes the best article published in Social Service Review in the preceding year.