Official websites use .gov
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
What happens when people face unfair treatment or judgment when applying for public assistance or social services?
What happens when people face unfair treatment or judgment when applying for public assistance or social services?
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Pratt, Eleanor, author
Hahn, Heather, author - Contributor(s):
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, issuing body.
Urban Institute, issuing body. - Publication:
- Washington, DC : Urban Institute, August 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Black or African American -- statistics & numerical data
Healthcare Disparities -- statistics & numerical data
Hispanic or Latino -- statistics & numerical data
Public Assistance -- statistics & numerical data
Racism -- statistics & numerical data
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- People applying for public assistance and social services, especially Black and Hispanic/Latinx applicants, often find the experience negative (Barnes 2021; Barnes and Henly 2018; Hahn et al. 2016). The application process can be complex, confusing, and time consuming, and clients can face burdensome applications, strict documentation requirements, and long waiting times in offices. Applicants often report feeling demeaned, judged, or belittled (Burt et al. 2010; Hahn, Katz, and Isaacs 2017; Stuber and Kronebusch 2004). This brief is part of a body of work exploring perceptions of discriminatory experiences in health care and other settings (Gonzalez, Kenney, et al. 2021; Gonzalez, Skopec, et al. 2021; McDaniel et al. 2021; Skopec, Gonzalez, and Kenney 2021). Here we present new survey data on peoples’ perceptions of unfair treatment or judgment based on their race or ethnicity when applying for public assistance or social services, the resulting disruptions to their receipt of social services, and actions they took in response. The Urban Institute’s December 2020 Well-Being and Basic Need Survey (WBNS), a nationally representative survey of adults ages 18 to 64, asked respondents if they felt treated or judged unfairly because of their racial or ethnic background when seeking social services or public assistance in the past 12 months and what resulted from such experiences. We find the following: (1) Black and Hispanic/Latinx adults were more likely than white adults to report unfair treatment or judgment based on race or ethnicity. These differences were especially stark among adults with low incomes: among respondents with family incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, Black respondents (11 percent) were more likely to report unfair treatment than Hispanic/Latinx respondents (7 percent) and white respondents (4 percent). (2) More than 95 percent of adults who reported unfair treatment or judgment said they faced a consequence from or acted in response to that experience, and more than 40 percent reported not getting the public assistance or social services they needed. (2) Among adults who reported unfair treatment or judgment, 27 percent reported delaying getting social services or public assistance and 35 percent reported looking for other ways to apply.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (13 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918300287206676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918300287206676