Government Assistance, Race, and Political Trust

by

Faculty Sponsor: Valerie Nazarro

Live Poster Session: Zoom Link

Katie Fletcher

Katie (she/her) is a junior at Wesleyan University, majoring in the College of Social Studies with a Minor in Economics. She currently works as an Intern at Open Communities Alliance in Hartford, supporting the organization’s community organizing, research, and legal advocacy teams in their pursuit of racial residential integration across Connecticut. She chose her research topic due to her interest in how government policy can remedy systemic racism in the United States. Her project suggests that successful government assistance programs may serve as one avenue for the U.S. federal government to earn trust from Black Americans, lost due to centuries of discrimination and political exclusion directed at Black communities. She is committed to conducting further research on strategies to correct systemic and institutional inequalities through public policy.

Abstract: A multitude of factors are thought to affect citizens’ trust in a democratic government system. To name just a few, fair and competitive elections, governments’ ability to respond effectively to crises, and satisfaction with social and economic assistance programs are all thought to contribute to citizens’ level of political trust (Tanny & Al-Hossienie, 2019; Dunlap, 2022). Among these, government assistance programs have received relatively little attention in the empirical literature on drivers of political trust in the United States. There is also a documented gap in political trust between white and Black Americans in the literature, motivated by Black citizens’ experiences of systemic racism within our government systems (Howell & Fagan, 1988). The relevance of this racial gap in trust in the United States necessitates United States-specific evidence on how drivers of trust affect various racial groups. The goal of this project was to identify any relationship between receiving government assistance and levels of political trust, and investigate whether this relationship is consistent across racial groups. Using a multivariate linear regression model, the results indicate a statistically significant, positive relationship between receiving government assistance and level of political trust. Notably, when analyzed by racial group, this relationship was only significant for Black Americans. Further research is necessary to identify the exact source of this difference between Black Americans and other racial groups, but the results do suggest that government assistance programs may offer an effective strategy for governments to earn trust from Black constituents.

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