Climate change has seen an increase in extreme weather events across the US, from severe hurricanes to the recent wildfires in Los Angeles. In new research Ashley Ross, Stella M. Rouse, Isabella Alcañiz and Alejandra Marchevsky examine who Americans feel are deserving of federal aid during climate disasters. They find that people who are seen being part of a different social group, or ‘out-group’, in this case, Puerto Ricans, are seen by those in other groups as being less deserving of receiving disaster assistance. They also find that Republicans and whites who took part in their study were less likely to favor generous and direct forms of assistance compared to Democrats, African Americans and Latinos. 

The recent wildfires in Los Angeles have put into sharp focus the significant strain that climate and weather disasters have on social, economic, and built systems. They are also a reminder that in the United States, disaster recovery is imbued with politics. As the wildfires raged, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans threatened to withhold federal disaster aid for California. Trump has repeatedly spread misinformation about the state’s water policies. This prompted Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville to claim, “They don’t deserve anything, to be honest with you.”

Conflict over disaster assistance has been rife during the Trump presidencies. In 2017 – a historic year of weather and climate disasters – Trump made it clear that he thought hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico was not deserving of additional disaster aid. He tweeted that more aid to Puerto Rico would “only take from the US” – insinuating that the commonwealth island was not part of the US.

These sentiments about who deserves disaster aid are not simply partisan political banter. Rather, they reflect conflict at the intersection of the rising costs of disasters (Figure 1), sociodemographic changes, and heightened political polarization. Years of research have established that racial and ethnic minorities in the US are more at risk to weather and climate disasters and bear a disproportional burden from their impacts. As this vulnerable group has grown in size and proportion of the total population, the allocation of federal disaster assistance has become more contested – and, our research shows, more racialized.

Figure 1 – The rising costs of disasters

Note: Figure shows the occurrence of billion-dollar disasters (those with losses exceeding $1 billion each) in the US from 1980 to 2024, showing event type (colors), frequency (left vertical axis), and cost (right vertical axis). Source: Climate.gov

Exploring deservingness of government assistance 

“Deservingness” has been extensively studied in the context of welfare policy. Stereotypes about racial and ethnic groups being undeserving is associated with opposition to welfare spending. In our research, we extend the analysis of deservingness to disaster assistance because of its similarities to welfare policies. Both are driven by need; are typically direct, nontaxable grants; and have redistributive effects. Moreover, disaster assistance demonstrates similar trends in partisan conflicts and race-based opposition to those aimed at welfare policies.

To explore attitudes about deservingness and disaster assistance, in 2018 we collected data from 1,300 US adults. We designed a survey experiment that asked participants to indicate how much disaster assistance should be given to a person who had to relocate due to a severe hurricane. We included a range of options that represent typical federal aid. These options increased in generosity and in the directness of the assistance: subsidize a rental property for six to 12 months, subsidize a rental property for an indefinite period, provide a loan to buy a home (of similar value), or provide funding to buy a home. We also included an option of no assistance.

Given the unprecedented impact of hurricanes in 2017, we created hypothetical scenarios around two severe storms in the recent memory of participants – Hurricanes Maria and Harvey. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the middle Texas coast, then stalled and meandered across the state, causing extreme flooding and extensive damages. Then in September, Hurricane Maria directly hit the island of Puerto Rico, causing tremendous infrastructure and property damage and loss of life. The impact of Hurricane Maria was more severe in terms of infrastructure damage and loss of life than Harvey, yet the federal government responded more rapidly and with greater resources for the US South than for the commonwealth island.

“20170922-OSEC-LSC-0021” (Public Domain) by USDAgov

In addition to assigning participants different disasters, the experiment scenarios varied the name of the person affected by the disaster. Names were designed to signal race and ethnicity. For example, “Jose Garcia” represented a Latino disaster victim while “Amy Smith” represented a white one. (We also included African and Asian American names.) In total, the experiment had 16 scenarios that varied by disaster event and victim name.

Attitudes are linked to the groups people belong to and don’t 

As to the how? and why? of attitudes about deservingness, we turned to social identity theory. This theory contends membership in social groups – from race and ethnic groups to political parties – defines who individuals are and how they relate to others. People try to keep a positive image of their social group and, to do so, will champion attitudes, behaviors, and policies that support the group they belong to (the in-group) over groups they don’t belong to (the out-groups).

Using social identity theory, we formed two expectations about in- and out-groups. First, we expected that perceptions about the disaster-affected person’s perceived citizenship would influence disaster aid attitudes. Specifically, we expected disaster victims from Puerto Rico would be perceived as non- or lesser-American (even though they are US citizens by birth). Being seen as the out-group, then, would be associated with being less deserving of disaster assistance.

Second, we were interested in exploring partisan differences in disaster assistance support. Generally, Republicans tend to have stronger opposition to redistributive policies and government aid in comparison to Democrats. Therefore, we expected that Republican survey participants would be less likely to support more generous and direct forms of disaster assistance as it would not align with their social identity.

Out-groups are deemed less deserving 

Our new research finds strong support for our expectations. Survey participants were less likely to support disaster assistance for victims of Hurricane Maria (in Puerto Rico) compared to Hurricane Harvey (in Texas). This result was true regardless of the survey participant’s race and ethnicity, as well as political party affiliation. Even Latinos expressed slightly lower support for disaster aid to Hurricane Maria victims than to Hurricane Harvey victims. We interpret this to mean that Americans see Puerto Ricans as less American and as an out-group.

Second, Republican survey participants were more likely to favor market-based assistance (such as loans) rather than direct, more generous forms of assistance (such as grants). In contrast, Democratic participants were more likely to support more generous forms of disaster assistance. Additionally, we found racial differences in disaster assistance attitudes. White survey participants were in line with Republicans who supported less aid, while African American and Latino participants were more likely to favor more generous types of aid (such as indefinite rental subsidies or a grant to buy a house). Again, we contend social identities are at play as these attitudes are in line with each social group’s stances on government assistance.

Attitudes about (un)deservingness will hurt disaster recovery 

Federal disaster aid can create a zero-sum political environment where the social group a person belongs to (or is perceived to belong to) affects the assistance they receive. In January the federal government confirmed that Texas misspent $1 billion of Hurricane Harvey aid by discriminating on the basis of race and national origin – to the detriment of disaster-affected racial and ethnic minorities. Attitudes about who is deserving of government assistance will only become more timely and important as climate change spurs the escalation of billion-dollar disasters and resources become more constrained. Critically, these attitudes about (un)deservingness will translate to policies that inhibit the rebuilding of disaster-stricken, particularly minority, communities.

• This article is based on the paper, ‘Who Is Perceived as Deserving? How Social Identities Shape Attitudes about Disaster Assistance in the United States’ in PS Political Science & Politics.
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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics. 
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