Religiosity and state welfare

•Catholic sex abuse scandals led to declines in religious charitable giving. We examine the scandals’ effects on government-provided welfare.•Areas with more scandals vote for Democrats more often. Welfare spending increases.•Slight increase in welfare spending does not replace decline in private charity.

The Catholic sex abuse scandals reduced both membership and religiosity in the Catholic Church. Because government spending on welfare may substitute for the religious provision of social services, we consider whether this plausibly exogenous decline in religiosity affected several measures of the public taste toward government and spending on welfare between 1990 and 2008. In places where there were more scandals, individuals state a preference for less government provision of social services. In contrast, a higher level of abuse is also associated with an increase in voting for Democratic candidates for President, state legislatures, and the US House of Representatives, and an increase in per capita government welfare spending, although this increase is insufficient to replace the decrease in Catholic-provided charity.