@article{TEXTUAL,
      recid = {5583},
      author = {Ternullo, Stephanie},
      title = {The Electoral Effects of Social Policy: Expanding Old-Age  Assistance, 1932–1940},
      journal = {The Journal of Politics},
      address = {2021-11-11},
      number = {TEXTUAL},
      abstract = {Under what conditions do means-tested programs increase  beneficiaries’ political participation? Recent scholarship  has begun to shed light on this question through a series  of causal studies of Medicaid expansion. This article  builds on those analyses by exploring an additional case,  the US expansion of Old-Age Assistance (OAA) programs  between 1932 and 1940. It provides new evidence that  means-tested programs can mobilize their beneficiaries and  also sheds light on how these effects emerge. Exploiting  state-by-state variation in expansion, I find that  increases in OAA generosity increased turnout in elderly  counties but increases in the OAA coverage rate did not.  These findings show that resource effects are crucial to  generating positive feedback and can do so even in the case  of a highly stigmatizing, means-tested program. I further  find that by mobilizing elderly Republican recipients, OAA  cost FDR votes in Republican-leaning counties, suggesting  that even positive participatory effects may undermine  social programs’ entrenchment.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/5583},
}