Linking Welfare Caseworker Decision Making to State Institutions

Abstract

Public benefits programs share common features with other large public bureaucracies that carry out many of the regulatory and distributive functions of modern life. Such organizations must balance a variety of policy purposes and values, both substantive and procedural, in a managerially complex structure. At least in principle, program administration is supposed to strive to be efficient, accurate, timely, consistent, and fair in its decision making, giving equal consideration to each claim, treating individuals in a humane and respectful way, and giving claimants as much information and participatory effect in the process as possible. The inscription of these procedural values presumably provides legitimacy to decision making, a fundamental requirement of “administrative justice” (Mashaw 1983). However, these organizing principles are often competitive in nature, so that trade-offs are inherent in organizing how services are provided and claims are processed.