Unexpected effects of national social insurance on support for county-level public health policies

Abstract

In the U.S., the generosity of supplementary federal unemployment insurance (UI) was a controversial issue throughout the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. The debate focused mostly on worries about economic disincentives for workers. However, federal UI may also have undermined support for local-level pandemic mitigation strategies. We quantify the effect of federal UI on the trade-offs that individuals are willing to make with respect to county-level pandemic policies. We use choice experiments from an online survey, and both model, and correct for, systematic response/non-response propensities. When respondents are asked to assume that federal UI will be zero, they tend to be averse to losses in average household income but favorably disposed toward increased unemployment. With positive federal UI payments, however, respondents become more willing to accept losses in average household income but view increased unemployment less favorably. The reversal with respect to losses in average household income is driven by younger, white, non-college and lower-income respondents. The reversal with respect to unemployment is driven by middle-aged and conservative respondents. Our findings demonstrate policy-relevant heterogeneity in support for county-level health policies as a function of national-level social safety net policy. (This paper featured as one chapter in Joe Mitchell-Nelson’s 2022 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Oregon.)