Stigma and the Social Safety Net

Stigma features prominently in debates about the social safety net, but empirically disentangling its role has left open many questions about whether it is a meaningful—or movable—barrier to take-up. Through four nationally representative studies (N = 11,164) and a new four-dimensional validated scale, we quantify the role that stigma plays in shaping take-up (1) directly, by impacting beneficiary behavior, and (2) indirectly, by influencing program design. We find that a one standard deviation (SD) increase in stigma is associated with a 9-19 percentage point decrease in willingness to apply for benefits among low-income respondents. It also predicts a 0.08-0.40 SD increase in society’s preferences for policies and program design features that could reduce program access. In both cases, we show that stigma explains more of the variation in policy preferences than any individual respondent characteristic, including political ideology. Notably, program design causally impacts stigma in competing ways: more expansive eligibility criteria reduce stigma, while implementation designs that would simplify access increase stigma. Together, 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.