The Public Assistance Policies of Cities and the Justice Concerns of Elected Officials: The Centrality of the Floors Principle in Addressing Urban Poverty

Abstract

City councils are significant, though seldom central, actors in local policy networks providing public assistance to disadvantaged residents. Mayors and council members in 12 American cities more often support than oppose public assistance initiatives. They claim that their own normative judgments are more important to their preferences and voting behavior on such matters than are public opinion, group demands, or economic considerations. While such elected officials hold a variety of justice principles, the most important of these affecting their positions on public assistance issues is the “floors” principle. A broad ethical commitment to providing social minimums enhances support for living‐wage ordinances, for linking subsidies for economic development to assistance to less advantaged citizens, and for exempting spending on social services from budget cuts. We discuss the implications of these findings for major theories of urban politics and policies—collective‐action theory, regime theory, and pluralism—and for advocates on behalf of the urban poor.

Reassessing “City Limits” in Urban Public Policy

“…Scholars in this sense are focusing more attention to the values and principles of policymakers, drawing attention to a wider range of social justice, ethical, and moral concerns articulated by decision makers. Schumaker and Kelly (2013) find evidence that city council members establish "floors" for welfare spending and seek to maintain such funding levels even in periods of economic stress, seemingly at odds with the rational-economic arguments about policymaker behavior in cities.…”

What can urban policies and planning really learn from John Rawls? A multi-strata view of institutional action and a canvas conception of the just city

“…In their study on elected officials in urban policymaking (which draws on interviews with around 100 elected officials in 12 cities), Schumaker and Kelly (2013: 93) find that “officials have some allegiance to the idea that they should focus on the poor, as suggested by the justice principles of John Rawls, but making a Rawlsian argument is unlikely to be effective because few officials think they should always focus on the poor. Perhaps officials doubt that every policy decision has to improve the conditions of the disadvantaged” (see also Schumaker and Kelly, 2012).…”

Group Involvements in City Politics and Pluralist Theory

“…How values are framed into principles can matter for outcomes. For example, those agents who wish to promote public assistance for the poor seem better served by claiming that municipal governments have a responsibility to provide social minimums on essential goods than by claiming that the poor have welfare rights that such governments must accommodate (Schumaker and Kelly, 2013).…”