Punishment, Religion, and the Shrinking Welfare State for the Very Poor in the United States, 1970–2010

Abstract

The U.S. social safety net for the very poor has been shrinking for several decades. Two factors stand out as potential drivers of this transformation: a neoliberal turn in poverty governance that favors incarceration and other punitive policies and “religious neoliberalism,” which melds neoliberal, anti-statist political ideology with conservative Christian ideals of compassionate assistance administered not by government but through local congregations. Yet these two streams have not been studied simultaneously in relation to welfare retrenchment. Analysis of the demise of state General Assistance (GA) programs using Cox regression models and a unique longitudinal data set shows that higher incarceration rates and higher church density both contribute to the decline of public assistance over time. Findings support the theoretical perspective of religious neoliberalism.