I paid into it with every paycheck I earned: How benefit type and beneficiary contributions shape attitudes about increasing or decreasing administrative burdens for social protections

Administrative burdens are an important policy tool that has received growing scholarly attention. Burdens are consequential and serve as a contributor to incomplete program take-up. However, our knowledge is limited on how program characteristics affect public attitudes toward burden-increasing or decreasing policies. Based on our knowledge of public attitudes toward the welfare state, two such characteristics, whether benefits are “earned” and whether they come in the form of in-kind services or cash payments, may also affect perceptions of administrative burdens. Using a nationally representative survey (N = 2904), we tested support for two administrative burdens (in-person interviews and requirements for government-issued documents) and two administrative easings (presumptive eligibility and express lane eligibility) for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in the United States. In general, we found no strong and consistent differences along both dimensions. However, Republicans, Conservatives, and those high in racial resentment consistently favored increasing burdens and opposed decreasing burdens with the opposite effect for Democrats, Liberals, and those low in racial resentment. Americans supported administrative burdens in the form of documentation requirements across all programs. However, they were open to burden decreases.