fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school
less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don’t attend church at
all.”^38 Churchgoing can also provide a financial safety net: when Vance’s father had
financial troubles, people in his church bought him a used car so he could get back on his
feet.^39
And going to church regularly is not just correlated with good actions; it seems to prompt
people to be their best selves.^40 One class migrant recalled her struggles in high school:
“Learnedness itself was suspect, and making a display of learning was simply not done;
in school as elsewhere, the worst failure of character was to get a ‘swelled head.’ You
could do intellectual work, though, if you called it something else. We called it
religion.”^41 For many in the working class, churches provide the kind of mental exercise,
stability, hopefulness, future orientation, impulse control, and social safety net many in
the professional elite get from their families, their career potential, their therapists, and
their bank accounts.
Tea Party members believe the “federal government was taking money from... people
of good character and giving to people of bad character,”^42 found a 2016 study.
Researchers have found the same belief time and again. Means-tested programs
inadvertently set the “have-a-littles” against the “have-nots,” noted an Italian lawyer
interviewed by Jonathan Rieder in his 1985 book.^43 In his high school job at a grocery,
Vance “learned how people gamed the welfare system.” They’d buy sodas with food
stamps and then sell them, or use food stamps for food and their own money for beer,
wine, and cigarettes. He’d see them going through the checkout lines using cell phones.
How could they afford cell phones? “I could never understand why our lives felt like a
struggle,” wrote Vance of his own family, “while those living off of government largesse
enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about.”^44
Government benefits tied to work are seen quite differently. Unemployment is seen “as
income that a person deserves and has basically worked for.” Disability is seen as
symbolizing past hard, dangerous work. In sharp contrast, means-tested benefits were
stigmatized. In rural California, Sherman found that food stamps and TANF (Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families) triggered “strong social disgrace.” One family drove an
hour or more from home to use their food stamps when the husband was unemployed. “I
don’t want to be considered lazy or a freeloader or something like that,” the wife
explained. “You want people to think you’re a hard worker—and, you know, we pride
ourselves on that,” she added. The stigma associated with welfare and food stamps has
- Why Does the Working Class Resent the Poor?