The Policies Of Resentment

Perhaps the most potent cause of MAGA adherence is resentment–the belief by far too many Americans that they are being denied their rightful status or being cheated out of benefits to which they are entitled by the “Others” who are “milking the system.”

Social policy can either ameliorate or feed those feelings.

As I have argued previously, policies intended to help less fortunate citizens can be delivered in ways that stoke resentments, or in ways that encourage national cohesion.  Consider public attitudes toward welfare programs aimed at impoverished constituencies, and contrast those attitudes with the overwhelming majorities that approve of Social Security and Medicare.

The difference is that Social Security and Medicare are universal programs. Virtually everyone contributes to them and everyone who lives long enough participates in their benefits. Just as we don’t generally hear complaints that “those people are driving on roads paid for by my taxes,” or sentiments begrudging a poor neighbor’s garbage pickup, beneficiaries of programs that include everyone (or almost everyone) are much more likely to escape stigma. In addition to the usual questions of efficacy and cost-effectiveness, policymakers in our diverse country should evaluate proposed programs by considering whether they are likely to unify Americans or further divide us. Universal policies are far more likely to unify, an important and often overlooked argument favoring both national health care and a Universal Basic Income.

The defects of existing American welfare policies are well-known and substantial. We have a patchwork of state and federal efforts and programs, with bureaucratic barriers and means tests that aren’t just expensive to administer, but also operate to exclude most of the working poor. Those who do manage to get coverage are routinely stigmatized by moralizing lawmakers pursuing punitive measures aimed at imagined “takers” and “Welfare Queens.” Current anti-poverty policies have not made an appreciable impact on poverty, but they have grown the bureaucracy and contributed significantly to stereotyping and socio-economic polarization; as a result, a growing number of economists and political thinkers now advocate replacing the existing patchwork with a Universal Basic Income- a stipend sent to every U.S. adult citizen, with no strings attached– no requirement to work, or to spend the money on certain items and not others– a cash grant sufficient to insure basic sustenance.

Critics of social welfare are appalled by the very thought of uniformity. Why, we’d end up paying people who didn’t deserve it!  It would encourage sloth, it would be spent on booze and drugs, it would require hard-working folks to pay increased taxes…

Interestingly, one “factoid” I recently came across seems relevant to this discussion: Residents in more than half of America’s counties now draw a substantial share of their total income — more than a quarter — from the government. Assuming the accuracy of that data point (I’ve lost the source), we now provide that money in massively inefficient ways.

Numerous pilot programs have disproven predictions that a UBI would undermine ambition and productivity.

The Washington Post recently surveyed the results, in an essay titled “Universal Basic Income Has Been Tested Repeatedly: It Works. Will America Ever Embrace It?”

A growing body of research based on the experiments shows that guaranteed income works — that it pulls people out of poverty, improves health outcomes, and makes it easier for people to find jobs and take care of their children. If empirical evidence ruled the world, guaranteed income would be available to every poor person in America, and many of those people would no longer be poor.

The Mirror, a news site in Indianapolis, recently reported on a small experiment here.

The universal basic income program was funded through a partnership between three Indianapolis nonprofits: Southeast Community Services, Edna Martin Christian Center and John Boner Neighborhood Centers. Participants received a total of 18 monthly payments from October 2022 to this March.

The program represented an effort to experiment with giving money directly to Indianapolis families, rather than providing them with assistance through programming or donations. Though participants got their last check two months ago, the basic income program was such a success that the centers are hoping to do it again.

Rather than spending their stipends on booze and drugs, or quitting jobs, nearly three-fourths of the participants were  spending most of their monthly $500 to help cover rent or housing costs.

The research typically focuses on the use people make of the stipends, and the programmatic effects–effects that are overwhelmingly positive. But researchers have neglected to study what may be the most positive aspect of such programs: the extent to which they reduce, rather than aggravate, the tendency to stigmatize recipients and further inflame bigotries.

That may be the most beneficial outcome of all.