The 47 Percent: U.S. Trends in Income Maintenance and Medicaid Spending, 1990-2011

Authors

Elgin Mannion, Western Illinois University.Follow
Gordon C. Chang, Western Illinois UniversityFollow

Keywords

Income maintenance, Medicaid, program expenditure growth, limited government, political affiliation, right-to-work status, Hispanic populations

Abstract

We analyze trends and variations in state-level expenditure growth for Medicaid, SSI, SNAP, and TANF. We explore three areas of interest: (1) How program structure impacts growth; (2) How programs responded to the 2008/2009 recession; and (3) How state preference for limited government, measured by Right- To-Work (RTW) status and political affiliation, impacts program expenditure growth. Findings show that program structure impacts expenditure growth: the state-matched programs like TANF and Medicaid grew slower from 1990-2011 than did open-ended federal programs like SNAP. OLS models found states with RTW policies and large Hispanic populations positively associated with higher income maintenance and Medicaid expenditure growth.

Recommended Citation

Mannion, Elgin and Chang, Gordon C. (2015) "The 47 Percent: U.S. Trends in Income Maintenance and Medicaid Spending, 1990-2011," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 42: Iss. 1, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.3886
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol42/iss1/3