Power & Moral Capital - A “Theory of Access” for People Receiving Public Assistance in Rural USA

In-depth interviews with people using public assistance in a rural place in the United States demonstrated barriers to accessing resources through formal work and self-provisioning and the ability to benefit from use of public assistance—low income means-tested medical, nutritional, financial, or other services from state, federal, or non-governmental agencies. The Theory of Access (TOA) was used as a framework to organize participant narratives and an intersectional perspective to a multidimensional theory of power was used to demonstrate how moral capital is levied and reproduced. Findings from the TOA revealed intersectionalities in barriers to accessing resources across structural, relational, physical, and psychosocial access mechanisms for women, particularly women of color with dependent children, pregnant women of color, and women with disabilities. While TOA demonstrated need for public assistance, the double power of moral capital demonstrated how the benefits of public assistance to human dignity and welfare were reduced by (1) disciplinary tactics to reject public assistance and (2) reproduction of broader moral imperatives. The connections between TOA and moral capital contribute an intersectionality approach for understanding the multiple disadvantages of people with the lowest incomes, which helps to explain low rates of self-provisioning and public assistance use despite high need across the rural Global North.