Can Money Buy Trust? Social Transfers and Trust During the Covid‐19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT The United States was among the countries that increased social spending the most during the pandemic, including by adopting new cash transfer schemes. Yet, little is known about the impact of these newly implemented or augmented benefits on citizen trust in public health institutions. Grounded in policy feedback literature and research on attitudinal spillover, we hypothesize that receiving social transfers during the pandemic increased trust in health institutions, with potentially heterogeneous effects across household income and political affiliation. Employing a difference‐in‐differences model and using the Understanding America Study dataset, we find no overall effect of receiving Stimulus Fund or SNAP benefits on trust in health institutions. However, we observe significant heterogeneity: Republicans—especially those with middle and high incomes—tend to decrease their trust after receiving the Stimulus Fund. Independents and respondents with other political affiliations also decrease trust after receiving the SNAP, although the estimates are only marginally statistically significant. Taken together, results suggest that while universalistic social policies are often believed to be broadly politically popular and generate positive feedback effects, their impacts may be limited or heterogeneous depending on political affiliation.