Race, Class, and Support for the Welfare State*

Two competing approaches to the study of African Americans—the race and class perspectives—have dominated attempts to explain their views on contemporary issues. To examine the race versus class debate, this study uses African Americans' views on government spending for five social welfare concerns: (1) improving and protecting the nation's health, (2) solving the problems of big cities, (3) halting rising crime rates, (4) dealing with drug addiction, and (5) improving the nation's education system. Data from the 1972–1990 General Social Surveys are used to compare middle‐class blacks with both working‐class blacks and whites and middle‐class whites in terms of their support for government spending for those five social welfare issues. Examining group means, we found no significant difference between the two black classes but a significant difference between the black middle class and the white middle class on support for government spending in all areas except halting the rising crime rates (where there were no significant differences among the four groups). Similarly, using logistic regression analysis we found that race continued to have a significant effect on support for spending even after controlling for class, year, age, gender, education, income, and occupational prestige. In respect to social welfare spending, the results indicate support for the race, as opposed to the class, perspective; that is, race is better than class for predicting African American attitudes on government spending.