Think of the Children?

Abstract

Abstract Government programs targeting groups perceived to be deserving are more likely to attract support. While children are often assumed to constitute such a group, their effect on public opinion can be theoretically ambiguous and few studies have tested whether highlighting the child beneficiaries of government programs can alter attitudes toward them. It is also unclear how conceptualizations of children’s deservingness vary depending on their race and across segments of the population. Using a nationally representative survey experiment, this study tests the effect of children on attitudes in the context of welfare, a highly politicized and racialized policy domain often associated with the undeserving. More specifically, this study tests whether highlighting the child beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) can alter attitudes toward it, and whether this effect varies by different racial characterizations of the children and across subgroups of the population. I find that doing so boosts support for SNAP overall and across politically influential constituencies, but that this effect is generally less pronounced when children are characterized as black as compared to white or diverse. These findings enhance our understanding of attitudes toward welfare and contribute to the deservingness literature more broadly.