State Legislators' Knowledge About Poverty, Inequality, and Social Policy

ABSTRACT How much knowledge do policymakers have about poverty, inequality, and social policy and does that knowledge matter? This study analyzes innovative data from direct (e.g., face‐to‐face) interviews of 49 California and Texas state legislators. Knowledge is assessed comprehensively with 11 questions and compared against a nationally representative sample of adults. Legislators answered only 42.5% of questions correctly—statistically significantly, but only slightly higher than the general public's 30.9% correct. Less than a tenth of legislators knew the poverty rate, and less than a quarter knew what share of the poor are homeless or the top 5% income threshold. There is also substantial heterogeneity as few answered most questions correctly, but several answered almost all incorrectly, and 14 of 49 performed worse than the general public. We demonstrate that this knowledge is salient because it strongly predicts legislators' voting. We then show key legislative roles, affiliations with stakeholders, and educational or biographical backgrounds do not result in greater knowledge. While legislators report various information sources influencing their thinking in this domain, some cannot cite any source, and sources are unrelated to knowledge. Ultimately, this study demonstrates policymakers' knowledge about poverty, inequality, and social policy is both limited and consequential.