Journal of Economic Perspectives
ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)
Administrative Burdens in the Social Safety Net
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 39,
no. 1, Winter 2025
(pp. 129–50)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Administrative burdens shape people's experiences of, and access to, social safety net programs. They can undermine the goals these programs are trying to achieve. Such burdens are the experience of policy implementation as onerous, and arise via learning costs (knowing about the existence of and requirements of public services), compliance costs (time and effort spent dealing with bureaucratic demands, such as paperwork and documentation), and psychological costs (emotional responses to citizen-state interactions). Such frictions can substantially limit eligible peoples' access to public services they want, would benefit from, and are legally entitled to receive. Those with the fewest resources, and the greatest needs, may struggle more to overcome burdens; the frictions thereby reinforcing existing inequality. As a research approach, administrative burden offers an intuitive and accessible way for policy actors and researchers to improve state capacity and the delivery of public services.Citation
Herd, Pamela, and Donald Moynihan. 2025. "Administrative Burdens in the Social Safety Net." Journal of Economic Perspectives 39 (1): 129–50. DOI: 10.1257/jep.20231394Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
- H53 National Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I32 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
- I38 Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs