Stigma may affect both how people use social safety net benefits and the way programs are designed

Does stigma affect participation in social safety nets?

Policymakers and academics have long debated the role of stigma in the social safety net and ways to both improve benefits programs and their use by people who most need them.

How does stigma shape participation in the U.S. social safety net? What causally increases or reduces stigma, and how might these design choices reinforce or mitigate persistent take-up gaps? 

In a new working paper, “Stigma and the Social Safety Net,” researchers from Harvard Kennedy School’s People Lab addressed these questions, examining whether people are less likely to apply for and use benefits if they feel a greater sense of stigma and how stigma influences policy design.

What does the research on stigma and benefit programs say?

Researchers Jessica Lasky-Fink, Heidi Wallace, and Professor Elizabeth Linos conducted four survey experiments between August 2024 and May 2025 of more than 11,000 people in the United States to understand the role of four dimensions of stigma—societal stigma, internalized stigma, general anticipated stigma, and anticipated treatment stigma—when it comes to social benefits programs.

The researchers found that stigma may directly reduce take-up by influencing the behavior of beneficiaries. Among low-income respondents, a one standard deviation increase in stigma is associated with an 8.3 to 18.8 percentage point decrease in willingness to apply for benefits, with internalized stigma the strongest predictor. Indirectly, stigma may shape policy preferences by increasing tolerance for administrative burdens and reducing support for spending on programs that help people experiencing poverty. The researchers write that “stigma explains more of the variation in policy preferences than any individual respondent characteristic, including political ideology.”

The researchers also find that program design causally affects stigma in competing ways. Programs with broader eligibility and more diverse beneficiary populations are less stigmatized, while features that simplify access—such as unrestricted cash benefits or low compliance requirements—can increase stigma, particularly among conservative respondents. The researchers write, “on the one hand, program design features that would expand access to benefits are more stigmatized, while on the other hand, programs that serve broader beneficiary populations are less stigmatized.” Together, the researchers write, “these findings suggest that stigma should be considered both an individual and structural barrier to participation in the social safety net, where it both shapes and is shaped by policy design choices.”

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