“Immigrationalization” of the Welfare State: Contextual influences on Welfare Politics in the United States

Abstract While prior studies have consistently linked immigration attitudes with public support for the welfare state, it is not yet clear how individuals process immigrant-related information in their home contexts and combine that with their existing immigration attitudes to update their attitudes toward the welfare state. In this paper, we consider how context (i.e., immigrant welfare participation rates in individuals’ home states) works in tandem with immigration attitudes to shape Americans’ support for the welfare state. We merge state contextual data on the welfare consumption rates of immigrants with micro-level public opinion data from the Cumulative American National Election Survey (CANES) for the years from 2004 to 2016. Our results suggest that individuals’ immigration attitudes and the degree of immigrant welfare participation in their home contexts combine to influence Americans’ welfare spending attitudes. More specifically, among individuals with unfavorable immigration attitudes, higher levels of immigrant welfare participation in their state contexts lead to significantly lower levels of welfare support. Likewise, in states with high-immigrant welfare participation rates, negative immigration attitudes have a stronger negative effect on welfare support. These findings suggest that Americans’ support for the welfare state is not only determined by their existing immigration attitudes but also the reality of immigrant welfare usage in their home contexts.