RESIDUALISM AND RURAL AMERICA - A DECADE LATER

Rural residents, more so than their urban counterparts are popularly b elieved to view the use of social welfare programs as appropriate only as last (residual) means of obtaining help. The extent to which this belief reflected reality was assessed by Camasso and Moore (1985) a de cade ago using data from a 1980 survey of Pennsylvania residents. Cong ruent with the residualist hypotheses they found that rural residents were less supportive than urban people of social welfare programming, even when the effects of various personal sociodemographic characteris tics were cont rolled. This paper replicates the work of Camasso and M oore by reporting findings from a similar study carried out a decade l ater. Although the relative economic and social capital disadvantage o f rural people has increased across time, they persist in being more l ikely than urban residents to express residualist views toward social welfare programming, Implications of these results are discussed.