With most based on cross-sectional designs, single measures of welfare spending, and few indicators of crime, several published research studies suggest an inverse relationship between welfare spending and serious crime. In response to the lack of longitudinal research, this study reconsidered the relationship between welfare spending and crimes using panel data from all 58 counties in California. Panel models/techniques are seen as "excellent quasi-experimental designs and more relevant in the present context." The results suggest that there is little to no relationship between welfare spending and serious crime which directly contradicts the results of the published research on the subject. Fixed-effects regressions revealed virtually no relationship between several measures of welfare spending and five types of serious crime: homicide, robbery, assault, burglary, and larceny. The results are robust to various measures of welfare spending and alternative modeling specifications. References