Who Is Deserving? How Special Monies Create Categories of Worth in Tax and Welfare Policy

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Welfare and Social Policy

Abstract

Sociologists are increasingly recognizing the importance of cultural categories of worth in shaping public policy outcomes. At the same time, these accounts often rely on overly simplistic conceptions of deservingness based on the individual attributes of policy beneficiaries. This study takes a relational approach to understand how institutions are not only reflections of cultural categories but can create them as well. This is done in two ways. First, I propose a three-part theory of deservingness based on the individual characteristics of the beneficiaries as well as the social meaning attached to the transfer itself. Second, I demonstrate the usefully of this framework through a comparative analysis of changes to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and the earned income and child tax credits (EITC, CTC) in the 1990s. I find that these “special monies” create distinct boundaries which shaped perceptions of deservingness among policy elites and the public at large and led to divergent policy trajectories.

Author

• Joshua Thomas McCabe, State University of New York-Albany