Do public officials exhibit social class biases when they handle casework? Evidence from multiple correspondence experiments

PLoS One. 2019 Mar 27;14(3):e0214244. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0214244. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Are public officials more responsive to requests from affluent or poor constituents? A growing body of evidence suggests that lawmakers are more responsive to the rich when they craft policy. However, some scholars theorize that officials also exhibit a corresponding bias in favor of the poor when they handle casework, essentially giving policy to the rich and services to the poor. In this paper, we test this casework prediction using four experiments in which confederates sent simple requests to state or local officials. In each, our confederates' reported social classes were randomly assigned and signaled with a brief introductory statement mentioning the sender's occupation or economic situation. Across our samples, we find precisely-estimated null effects of social class biases: the officials we studied were equally likely to respond regardless of the constituent's class. These findings raise doubts about whether casework is really a class-biased process.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Bias
  • Humans
  • Policy*
  • Prejudice*
  • Social Class*

Grants and funding

JH received funding from the National Science Foundation (SES-1657821) for this work. https://nsf.gov/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.