Bureaucratic proceduralism in the cash welfare and Food Stamp programs.

摘要

The administration of social benefit programs systematically affects who gets what and how, and therefore may be regarded as performing an essentially political function---regardless of manifest intent. This study examines the policy consequences of "bureaucratic proceduralism" in the cash welfare and Food Stamp programs. Procedural rules refer to the affirmative steps that must be taken by claimants in order to receive benefits. Bureaucratic proceduralism is created through the interaction of formal procedural rules and the informal practices through which they are applied. Proceduralism, which can operate in ways that are relatively opaque, is of analytical interest when it affects program participation independently of the substantive status of claimants (for example, personal characteristics such as income, education, assets, and so on). This study asks five questions using the National Survey of America's Families.First, does proceduralism in the cash welfare program perform a distributive function that is different from that of non-procedural factors? Individual differences of interest include attributes associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, as well as race. Second, did proceduralism contribute to the decline in caseloads after welfare reform, independently of the substantive status of claimants? Third, does proceduralism in the Food Stamp program (FSP) perform a distributive function that is different from that of non-procedural factors? Fourth, did proceduralism contribute to declines in sanctionable FSP error rates, independently of the substantive status of claimants? Fifth, were the administrative experiences of FSP claimants responsive to policy initiatives (specifically, periodic reporting waivers and options) that explicitly targeted procedural burdens?The results of the empirical analyses suggest that the distributive function of proceduralism in the cash welfare and Food Stamp programs is different from that of non-procedural considerations, that proceduralism was associated with declining TANF caseloads, and that the adoption of a periodic reporting waiver/option was associated with a diminished likelihood of procedural exit. However, the analysis also shows that exclusionary proceduralism was not associated with reductions in FSP error rates. These findings are generally consistent with the hypothesis of this study that proceduralism, whether intentionally or unintentionally, can have systematic policy consequences independently of the substantive status of claimants.