Sustained agency contact teaches welfare recipients they are undeserving

Evidence

The greater the involvement of the client with the agencies and their employees, the more sustained and critical the psychological implications of the interactions. For this reason the dependence of poor people on government services creates the context in which interactions with street-level bureaucrats may have substantial psychological implications. At the very least poor people who bounce from one agency to another have reinforced feelings of dependency, powerlessness, and, deriving from these, anger. After sustained exposure to the welfare system, for example, recipients have been found to see themselves as “undeserving” and “lucky to get anything at all.” — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 510

Categorization

• SEED: Strong angle: ‘the welfare self as administrative product’ — how routine bureaucratic contact manufactures feelings of undeservingness that outlive policy reform.
• DEEPTHINKING: Dense claim connecting institutional dependence, psychological internalization, and anger — the mechanism that would explain why stereotyped self-concepts persist faster than policy changes.
• XREF: connects to: Affirmation from a recruiter can reverse the damage of abusive family treatment. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 377; Sustained agency contact teaches poor clients they are undeserving; Agency layouts and queues teach clients their socially expected level of service — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 491 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Sustained agency contact teaches poor clients they are undeserving #expands (1.00)
• Administered needs cause individuals to identify with and submit to domination #corroborates (0.90) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 39
• Agency layouts and queues teach clients their socially expected level of service #exemplifies (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 491