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Public Welfare Spending and Private Social Services in U.S. States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Robert C. Lowry
Robert C. Lowry*
Affiliation:
The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, USA
*
Robert C. Lowry, School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Rd., GR 31 Richardson, TX 75080, USA Email: robert.lowry@utdallas.edu
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Abstract

Social services in the United States are supplied by both the public and private sectors. Previous political science research has focused on public transfers or Medicaid; I study “Other Public Welfare” programs that include contracts and grants to private social services providers, focusing on the relationship between the two sectors. My results imply that an increase in either Other Public Welfare spending or private individual and family services employees leads to an increase in the other sector. I find weaker evidence of similar relationships involving private residential care or day care services, and private social services employment is generally independent of public spending on transfers and Medicaid. My results have implications for the full effects of changes in public welfare spending, including the effects on the private sector, as well as the effects of organized interests on public welfare spending.

Keywords

public welfare spendingsocial servicesnonprofit organizationsinterest groups
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 3 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

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