An examination of attitudes toward welfare policy is necessary in order to understand the politics of welfare reform. Although much of the social science literature in this area is only descriptive, three studies provide inferential evidence of the basis of attitudes toward welfare. Unfortunately, these studies are limited by the lack of general psychological variables and by the exclusive use of bivariate analysis. The data base for this paper is a stratified random sampleof persons living in Ostego County, New York. The path analysis indicates that education, liberalism, attitude toward human nature, and work ethic are the predictors of welfare policy views. Work ethic is clearly the most important predictor. Further, the socioeconomic variables play only a small and, generally, indirect influence on welfare policy attitudes.