Businesses or Beneficiaries: the Submerged Consequences of Workfare Policy Design

This dissertation critically analyzes the policy association between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), and in doing so, sheds light on the employer-uplifting design of the U.S. welfare state. I examine this association in three stand-alone Chapters with the intent of answering the following questions: 1) Is the SNAP-WOTC association mutually beneficial to SNAP recipients and the employers that access the WOTC; 2) Is the SNAP-WOTC association truly intended to be mutually beneficial; and 3) What are the perceptive consequences of revealing how SNAP benefits employers through the WOTC. Using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, I find that the association's systemic benefits are one-sided in favor of employers, and despite claims that the reform which made this policy association possible was meant to uplift those experiencing poverty, that language choices of key policymakers reveal a deference to employers and the hierarchical labor relationships which place those employers at the top. Finally, I find that revealing the ways employers benefit from SNAP through its association with the WOTC leads to changed perceptions of SNAP itself, but the direction and significance of these changes are conditional on one's spatial ideology.