Full Citation
Title: Rural Safety Net Use During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2021
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/vrb8q
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Abstract: Despite unparalleled government relief spending, many households have fallen into financial distress during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, reports of non-governmental forms of disaster aid - both from organizations and among individuals - are widespread. Given that formal government programs have not fully met the material needs of many households across the United States during the pandemic, we build on disaster scholarship to compare utilization of three distinct forms of disaster support to better understand how households are getting by: (1) government safety net programs, (2) not for-profit support, and (3) informal social support. We focus our study on a large, yet especially vulnerable and under-researched population: rural residents across the Western U.S. Drawing on results from a representative survey fielded during the summer of 2020, we find that informal social support was the most widely used safety net, with over half of all residents giving or receiving some form of informal support. However, differences in age, education, sex, race, ethnicity, and homeownership status variously predicted different types of safety net use, demonstrating the unevenness of pandemic impacts and access to relief resources across demographic groups. Finally, rural residents who experienced the worst pandemic impacts were the most likely to utilize any of the three forms of safety nets examined. Despite identified limitations to government relief, both formal government programs and informal social support systems were utilized by those most affected by the pandemic.
Url: https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/vrb8q
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Authors: McConnell, Kathryn; Merdjanof, Alexis A.; Burow, Paul Berne; Mueller, J. Tom; Farrell, Justin
Publisher:
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Health, Land Use/Urban Organization, Poverty and Welfare
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