Making Social Welfare Policy in America

Making Social Welfare Policy in America PDF Author: Edward D. Berkowitz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669223X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
American social welfare policy has produced a health system with skyrocketing costs, a disability insurance program that consigns many otherwise productive people to lives of inactivity, and a welfare program that attracts wide criticism. Making Social Welfare Policy in America explains how this happened by examining the historical development of three key programs—Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Edward D. Berkowitz traces the developments that led to each program’s creation. Policy makers often find it difficult to dislodge a program’s administrative structure, even as political, economic, and cultural circumstances change. Faced with this situation, they therefore solve contemporary problems with outdated programs and must improvise politically acceptable solutions. The results vary according to the political popularity of the program and the changes in the conventional wisdom. Some programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, remain in place over time. Policy makers have added new parts to Medicare to reflect modern developments. Congress has abolished Aid to Families of Dependent Children and replaced with a new program intended to encourage work among adult welfare recipients raising young children. Written in an accessible style and using a minimum of academic jargon, this book illuminates how three of our most important social welfare programs have come into existence and how they have fared over time.

Making Social Welfare Policy in America

Making Social Welfare Policy in America PDF Author: Edward D. Berkowitz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669223X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book Here

Book Description
American social welfare policy has produced a health system with skyrocketing costs, a disability insurance program that consigns many otherwise productive people to lives of inactivity, and a welfare program that attracts wide criticism. Making Social Welfare Policy in America explains how this happened by examining the historical development of three key programs—Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Edward D. Berkowitz traces the developments that led to each program’s creation. Policy makers often find it difficult to dislodge a program’s administrative structure, even as political, economic, and cultural circumstances change. Faced with this situation, they therefore solve contemporary problems with outdated programs and must improvise politically acceptable solutions. The results vary according to the political popularity of the program and the changes in the conventional wisdom. Some programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, remain in place over time. Policy makers have added new parts to Medicare to reflect modern developments. Congress has abolished Aid to Families of Dependent Children and replaced with a new program intended to encourage work among adult welfare recipients raising young children. Written in an accessible style and using a minimum of academic jargon, this book illuminates how three of our most important social welfare programs have come into existence and how they have fared over time.

The Welfare State

The Welfare State PDF Author: David Garland
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199672660
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This Very Short Introduction discusses the necessity of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Situating social policy in an historical, sociological, and comparative perspective, David Garland brings a new understanding to familiar debates, policies, and institutions.

Wealth and Welfare States

Wealth and Welfare States PDF Author: Irwin Garfinkel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019957930X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Including education has profound consequences, undergirding the case for the productivity of welfare state programs and the explanation for why all rich nations have large welfare states, and identifying US welfare state leadership. From 1968 through 2006, the United States swung right politically and lost its lead in education and opportunity, failed to adopt universal health insurance and experienced the most rapid explosion of health care costs and economic inequality in the rich world. The American welfare state faces large challenges. Restoring its historical lead in education is the most important but requires investing large sums in education, beginning with universal pre-school and in complementary programs that aid children's development.

From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State

From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State PDF Author: David T. Beito
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807860557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more Americans belonged to fraternal societies than to any other kind of voluntary association, with the possible exception of churches. Despite the stereotypical image of the lodge as the exclusive domain of white men, fraternalism cut across race, class, and gender lines to include women, African Americans, and immigrants. Exploring the history and impact of fraternal societies in the United States, David Beito uncovers the vital importance they had in the social and fiscal lives of millions of American families. Much more than a means of addressing deep-seated cultural, psychological, and gender needs, fraternal societies gave Americans a way to provide themselves with social-welfare services that would otherwise have been inaccessible, Beito argues. In addition to creating vast social and mutual aid networks among the poor and in the working class, they made affordable life and health insurance available to their members and established hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the elderly. Fraternal societies continued their commitment to mutual aid even into the early years of the Great Depression, Beito says, but changing cultural attitudes and the expanding welfare state eventually propelled their decline.

Making Markets in the Welfare State

Making Markets in the Welfare State PDF Author: Jane R. Gingrich
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139499181
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Over the past three decades, market reforms have transformed public services such as education, health, and care of the elderly. Whereas previous studies present markets as having similar and largely non-political effects, this book shows that political parties structure markets in diverse ways to achieve distinct political aims. Left-wing attempts to sustain the legitimacy of the welfare state are compared with right-wing wishes to limit the state and empower the private sector. Examining a broad range of countries, time periods, and policy areas, Jane R. Gingrich helps readers make sense of the complexity of market reforms in the industrialized world. The use of innovative multi-case studies and in-depth interviews with senior European policymakers enriches the debate and brings clarity to this multifaceted topic. Scholars and students working on the policymaking process in this central area will be interested in this new conceptualization of market reform.

Development and Crisis of the Welfare State

Development and Crisis of the Welfare State PDF Author: Evelyne Huber
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226356493
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens offer the most systematic examination to date of the origins, character, effects, and prospects of generous welfare states in advanced industrial democracies in the post—World War II era. They demonstrate that prolonged government by different parties results in markedly different welfare states, with strong differences in levels of poverty and inequality. Combining quantitative studies with historical qualitative research, the authors look closely at nine countries that achieved high degrees of social protection through different types of welfare regimes: social democratic states, Christian democratic states, and "wage earner" states. In their analysis, the authors emphasize the distribution of influence between political parties and labor movements, and also focus on the underestimated importance of gender as a basis for mobilization. Building on their previous research, Huber and Stephens show how high wages and generous welfare states are still possible in an age of globalization and trade competition.

The Changing Meanings of the Welfare State

The Changing Meanings of the Welfare State PDF Author: Nils Edling
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178920125X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
In discussions of economics, governance, and society in the Nordic countries, “the welfare state” is a well-worn analytical concept. However, there has been much less scholarly energy devoted to historicizing this idea beyond its postwar emergence. In this volume, specialists from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland chronicle the historical trajectory of “the welfare state,” tracing the variable ways in which it has been interpreted, valued, and challenged over time. Each case study generates valuable historical insights into not only the history of Northern Europe, but also the welfare state itself as both a phenomenon and a concept.

Women, the State, and Welfare

Women, the State, and Welfare PDF Author: Linda Gordon
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299126633
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
A collection of essays about women and welfare in America, this book discusses how welfare programmes affect women and how gender relations have influenced the structure of such programmes. Issues such as race and class are also discussed.

The Transformation of Welfare States?

The Transformation of Welfare States? PDF Author: Nick Ellison
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134765703
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
'Globalization', institutions and welfare regimes -- The challenge of globalization -- Globalization and welfare regime change -- Towards workfare? : changing labour market policies -- Labour market policies in social democratic and continental regimes -- Population ageing, GEPs and changing pensions systems -- Pensions policies in continental and social regimes -- Conclusion : welfare regimes in a liberalizing world.

Capitalists Against Markets

Capitalists Against Markets PDF Author: Peter A. Swenson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190286601
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Conventional wisdom argues that welfare state builders in the US and Sweden in the 1930s took their cues from labor and labor movements. Swenson makes the startling argument that pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalist interests and preferences. Juxtaposing two widely recognized extremes of welfare, the US and Sweden, Swenson shows that employer interests played a role in welfare state development in both countries.