Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy

From Library Journal
Gilens (political science, Yale Univ.) has written a provocative analysis of American attitudes toward welfare. Actually, he might have better titled his study Why Americans Hate Certain Kinds of Welfare, because he convincingly shows that most Americans actually support state assistance to the deserving poor, i.e., those who are not lazy and who actively seek employment. On the other hand, Americans overwhelmingly oppose welfare to those perceived as shiftless. This category has come to be associated with African Americans, partly through the medias long-term tendency to connect welfare with blacks. To prove this point, the book analyzes more than four decades of news reports on poverty. In the end, the author shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs. A well-written and thoughtful study on a timely subject.Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, INCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Why do Americans who want to "help the poor" have such negative attitudes toward "welfare" ? Yale University political science professor Gilens suggests the media are a primary culprit. Individualism and economic self-interest don't adequately explain white Americans' opposition to welfare. Using detailed analysis of surveys and other sources, Gilens traces this antipathy to portrayals in the media that "racialize" welfare and activate the ancient racial stereotype of African Americans as "lazy." The old notion of "the undeserving poor" is central here; many of those who want "an end to welfare as we know it" think government should be spending more, not less, to help poor people trying to support themselves. Gilens' study of how TV and newsmagazines "visualize" poverty may be controversial; he describes how racial stereotypes lead even liberal photo editors and producers to misrepresent the composition of America's poor people. Recognizing the complexity of these public attitudes, Gilens argues that well-conceived means-tested programs can achieve and maintain strong public support. Mary Carroll


Book Description
Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor.





Card catalog description
Drawing on surveys of public attitudes and analyses of more than forty years of television and newsmagazine stories on poverty, Gilens demonstrates how public opposition to welfare is fed by a potent combination of racial stereotypes and misinformation about the true nature of America's poor. But white Americans don't oppose welfare simply because they think it benefits blacks; rather, they think it benefits "undeserving" blacks who would rather live off the government than work, a perception powerfully fueled by the media's negative coverage of the black poor. The public's views on welfare, Gilens shows, are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor.


From the Inside Flap
Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor.





About the Author
Martin Gilens is an associate professor of political science and a fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.



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...goes to the heart of one of the central issues of the day—race and the place of African Americans in the U.S. — Fay Lomax Cook. coauthor of Support for the American Welfare State


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