Changes in Public Opinion and the American Welfare State
The debate over the welfare state in the United States has un folded in the throes of a very long-running tension between on one hand, a deep-seated belief that charity corrupts its recipients and on the other, a con viction of our collective responsibility to care for the vulnerable among us. What makes this interesting, of course, is that many if not most Americans put stock in both sides of the debate. This tension plays out in legislative wran gling over the design of anti-poverty programs, it permeates mass media cov erage of the poor, and it has characterized measures of public opinion toward poverty relief as long as there have been such measures.1 As the American welfare state has grown in fits and starts since the advent of Civil War pen sions, voters and policymakers have continued to wrestle with an ambivalence about how to help and how much help to extend to the economically vulner able, under what circumstances, and from what sources. As the United States confronts steeply rising health care costs, the retirement of the baby boomers, and growing economic inequality, this ambivalence offers both a foundation for the expansion of redistributive policies and a potential obstacle to needed reforms. In tracing some recent contours of public opinion toward redistribu tion, this essay attempts to elaborate both the political opportunities and chal lenges to bringing America's welfare state more into line with the needs of a dynamic population. The long-standing sense of obligation to help the poor among us?whether driven by guilt, the practical need to raise up the next generation of citizens,