Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 May 14;121(20):e2306287121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2306287121. Epub 2024 May 6.
ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of residential mobility on electoral participation among the poor by matching data from Moving to Opportunity, a US-based multicity housing-mobility experiment, with nationwide individual voter data. Nearly all participants in the experiment were Black and Hispanic families who originally lived in high-poverty public housing developments. Notably, the study finds that receiving a housing voucher to move to a low-poverty neighborhood decreased adult participants’ voter participation for nearly two decades-a negative impact equal to or outpacing that of the most effective get-out-the-vote campaigns in absolute magnitude. This finding has important implications for understanding residential mobility as a long-run depressant of voter turnout among extremely low-income adults.
PMID:38709927 | DOI:10.1073/pnas.2306287121
