American Social Welfare Policy Research Articles

Poor Support/Rich Support: (Re)viewing the American Social Welfare State

Since at least the 1970s a variety of scholars have redefined the U.S. social welfare state to include not only traditional benefit programs (for example, Food Stamps and Social Security) but also a variety of tax benefits that are “hidden” or “submerged” forms of “welfare for the wealthy.” Including these benefits in the overall picture of U.S. social welfare provision reveals a system that is both larger in size than popularly believed and that, in addition to providing some support for the poor, distributes significant benefits regressively to households with substantial wealth. Although a variety of scholars and policy analysts have described these outcomes, scholars have yet to focus on the ways in which structural inequality is written directly into the means of administration of U.S.social welfare programs. This Article is the first to turn to those questions and to systematically demonstrate that those who are economically (and disproportionately racially) disadvantaged are offered a social welfare state that is meager, punitive, and tremendously risky for those who receive its benefits. But for those with economic privilege, the story is quite different. Families and individuals with significant economic privilege benefit disproportionately from a whole host of cash and near-cash benefits that are neither meager nor punitive. In fact, in contrast to benefits for the poor, benefits for the rich function as nearly invisible entitlements. As one moves from benefits for the poor towards benefits for the rich, the administrative structures shift along this progression, becoming less and less punitive and risky and more and more like invisible entitlements. Although as a formal matter the rich, like the poor, have no right to economic support in the constitutional sense, American social welfare policy moves the rich remarkably close to a right to economic support, leaving the poor far behind. This Article reveals these vast structural inequalities and concludes by calling not only, as others have, for an increase in and more progressive distribution of social welfare dollars but also, for the first time, for reforms that would address the structural inequalities at the heart of the U.S. social welfare state and that would render it more successful at supporting the autonomy and resilience of all of its beneficiaries.

Grim fairy tales: the rhetorical construction of American welfare policy

The Changing Faces of American Welfare Policy: Historical Roots of Contemporary Welfare Legislation Welfare Legislation Is Symbolic: An Introduction American Social Welfare Policy in Context, 1600-1935 American Social Welfare Policy in Context, 1940-2002 Rhetorical Constructions of Welfare Recipients and Welfare Families in United States Congressional Hearing and Debates Are We Going to Now Govern by Anecdote?: Rhetorical Constructions of Welfare Recipients in the Congressional Hearings, Debates, and Legislation, 1992-2002 Legislating a Normal Classic Family: The Rhetorical Construction of Families in American Welfare Policy The Rhetorical Force of Depiction in American Welfare Policy In Search of an Exigence to Warrant Reform: Public Opinion, Policy Research, and Anecdotal Evidence American Welfare Policy and the Ineluctable Appeal of Language: Conclusion and Implications

From the Puritans to the projects: public housing and public neighbors

From Puritans to Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors. By Lawrence J. Vale. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. 482 pages. $22.50 (paperback). The question of class inequality has always been hotly contested terrain, occupied on one side by those who demand corrective government intervention and, on other, by those who maintain that intervention itself is problem. Far beyond realm of academic questions of justice and fairness, however, lie harsh reminders that inequality endures, despite well-intentioned efforts of our best citizens and elected representatives. Perhaps most visible and striking reminders are high-rise housing projects of American cities. In From Puritans to Projects, Lawrence Vale attempts to explain how the projects became most vilified domestic environment in United States and why their residents came to carry such a broadly shared stigma (v). In so doing, Vale, a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, brings an architectural sensibility to bear on his more than twenty years of research into historical roots of public housing. The result is an illuminating study that exposes some of enduring antinomies of American social welfare policy. For example, while public housing has often been at center of contentious debate in American politics, officials and citizens alike have also agreed that they have a duty to care for their public neighbors (Vale's term for those who cannot meet their community's socioeconomic standards). It is Vale's signal accomplishment as a historian to explore historical roots of this ambivalence, arguing that troubled housing projects of today can be better understood if they are seen as having grown out of cultural context of Puritan America. Although nominally national in scope, emphasis throughout this book is on city of Boston, whose long history affords a rare opportunity to explore complete development of public housing in one place (9). One recurring theme in this narrative is need to distinguish between deserving and undeserving segments of poor. This is evident when, in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was up to Massachusetts town selectmen to distribute aid to paupers. If applicants were judged to be poor through no fault of their own, they received aid or outdoor relief while staying at home. If instead they were seen as mad, immoral, or simply lazy, they would receive indoor relief, which meant being forced to take up residence in an almshouse. …

Influences on Bureaucratic Policy Initiatives in the American States

This study develops and tests an empirical model of the influences on bureaucratic policy making in state Medicaid programs. The dependent variable is a measure of administrative social policy initiatives. The model incorporates a number of theoretically relevant independent variables, allowing us to examine some of the most important explanations for bureaucratic behavior. The empirical results demonstrate that interest groups, structural characteristics, and state environmental conditions all affect state policy choices to adopt optional health care services. In contrast, partisan and ideological political factors seem to have little direct impact. These findings give us important insights into the bureaucracy's role in state Medicaid programs. They also emphasize the need for further empirical research on administrative influence in the American social welfare policy process,

The Dynamics of American politics: approaches and interpretations

* Foreword Theodore J. Lowi. * Conversations on the Study of American Politics: An Introduction Lawrence C. Dodd and Calvin Jillson. Patterns Of Political Change And Inquiry * Patterns and Periodicity in American National Politics C. Jillson. * Pattern Recognition and Doing Political History: Art, Science, or Bootless Enterprise? Walter Dean Burnham. * Common Ground: History and Theories of American Politics Elaine K. Swift and David W. Brady. Macroanalysis * American Exceptionalism Reconsidered: Culture or Institutions? Sven H. Steinmo. * Liberalism and the Course of American Social Welfare Policy Russell L. Hanson. * Macroeconomic Change and Political Transformation in the United States Edward S. Greenberg. * The Origins of Social Policy in the United States: A Polity-Centered Analysis Theda Skocpol. Microanalysis * Rational Choice Theory and the Study of American Politics John Aldrich. * The Social Psychology of Politics Murray Edelman. * Contexts, Intermediaries, and Political Behavior Robert Huckfeldt and Paul Allen Beck. * Group Politics Reexamined: From Pluralism to Political Economy Clarence N. Stone. Linkage Processes * Politics as Persuasion Jane J. Mansbridge. * Beyond the Iconography of Order: Notes for a New Institutionalism Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek. * Political Learning and Political Change: Understanding Development Across Time L. C. Dodd. Conclusion * Ideas, Interests, and Institutions Hugh Heclo. *

Fiscal Constraints and Electoral Manipulation in American Social Welfare

American social welfare policy involves a politically significant fiscal interaction between short-run, pay-as-you-go constraints and long-run equilibrium constraints motivated by the contributory principle and the concept of actuarial soundness. The fiscal constraints induce conflict between benefit recipients and payroll-tax-payers. To support small election-year reductions in payroll taxes, means-tested program benefits are slightly reduced in election years (compared to non-election-year levels under similar economic conditions). The existence of the constraints and of the election-year changes is tested using a multivariate time series regression model of monthly transfer payments and contributions for social insurance during years 1948–87. Short-run dynamics are found to be weakly incrementalist, but otherwise the results support the argument. Extraordinary manipulations are identified during 1972. Special technical features of the econometric analysis are a nonlinear, dynamic specification; robust generalized method of moments estimation; and near cointegration.

America's Misunderstood Welfare State: Myths and Realities

To listen to the critics, one would think that the nation's social welfare programs were an abject failure–ungovernable, unaffordable, and undesirable. But though widely believed by Americans of every political persuasion, the perception of failure is false. As the authors demonstrate, America today has all the institutions of a mature welfare state, while still regarding “welfare statism” with deep suspicion. The authors seek to explain this paradox and to set the record straight about the actual workings and accomplishments of the nation's welfare programs – social security, public assistance, and medical care –and it shows that the gloom and doom that surround so much public discussion in this area stems from simple, attractive–and false–ideas about what these programs are and how they work. Above all, they argue that American social welfare policy has been shaped by certain enduring commitments which most Americans believe in whether they realize it or not.

The Significance of SIPP for Child Support Research and Policy Formulation1

Almost all discussions of child support issues start with a review of child support receipts in the United States. The report for 1987 indicates that there were 9.4 million families with a child by a parent absent from the home); that 59070 percent of those families had awards; that of those families with awards, 51 % received all that was due, and 24% received nothing at all. The mean amount of child support due to families with awards was $3017; for those with any payments, the mean payment received was $2710 (Lester, 1990). The bottom line: only 39% of all families with children from an absent father received any child support in 1987. That so few families receive child support, almost 15 years after the passage of federal legislation mandating state child support programs, is often viewed as a failure of American social welfare policy to ensure that all parents contribute to the economic support of their children. Specifically, it

Wilbur Cohen and American social reform.

WILBUR J. COHEN, who lived from 1913 to 1987, had a major impact on American social welfare policy. He nurtured the old-age insur ance program into America's largest and most successful social program, and he spearheaded the drive to create the programs of the Great Society. Al though Cohen's life became submerged in the many programs he helped to establish and expand, his history is a compelling case study of what might be called modern bureaucratic reform. Unlike such pioneering social welfare professionals as Florence Kelley and Jane Addams, Cohen made many of his contributions from within the bureau cracy at a time when the state had become an agent of its own expansion. And unlike those earlier reformers, Cohen served as a diplomat who shut tled between the cerebral world of professional policy analysis and the pragmatic world of legislative politics.

Shared Responsibility: Families and Social Policy

One of the fundamental issues confronting those who create, analyze, or work within the framework of modern American social welfare policy is the relationship of the family and the state in the delivery of social care through social services. Dr. Moroney develops the idea of the family as both recipient and dispenser of social services. Simply and effectively he paints the landscape with respect to American families. He focuses on two special cases: families with frail elderly and families with severely mentally handicapped children. The notion of shared responsibility between the family and state, the nature of social welfare response through government programs and the professional response of social workers to families in need, and some of the dilemmas inherent in formulating family policy in a multicultural, pluralistic society are examined.

SOCIAL INSURANCE FOR THE DISABLED AND ELDERLY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Disability and old age, lumped together early in the history of social insurance, are related public policy concerns. Despite their association, however, old age provides a much more secure route to social welfare benefits than does disability. The welfare state for the elderly is larger and enjoys stronger political support than does the welfare state for the disabled. This disparity raises intriguing historical questions about the development of American social welfare policy in the twentieth century.

The two cultures of policy: A review essay

American Foreign Policy: A Contemporary Introduction, by Thomas L. Brewer. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986. 317 pp. +xiii. $14.95 paper. The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs Conceptual Mod els and Bureaucratic Politics, by Roger Hilsman. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Pren tice-Hall, 1987. 326 pp. + ix paper. Making Public Policy: A Hopeful View of American Government, by Steven Kelman. New York: Basic Books, 1987. American Social Welfare Policy: Reassessment and Reform, by Marc L. Miringoff and Sandra Opdycke. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986. 169 pp. + xvii. ?2395 cloth. Poverty and Public Policy: An Analysis of Federal Intervention Efforts, by Michael Morris and John B. Williamson. Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 1986. 237 pp. +xii. $35.00 cloth. American Social Welfare Policy. Dynamics of Formulation and Change, by David A. Rochefort. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1986. 206 pp. + xii. paper.

Politics and Social Welfare Policy in the United States. By Robert X. Browning (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1986. xiv, 205p. $18.95). - American Social Welfare Policy: Dynamics of Formulation and Change. By David A. Rochefort (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986. xii, 206p. $22.00, paper).

Politics and Social Welfare Policy in the United States. By Robert X. Browning (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1986. xiv, 205p. $18.95). - American Social Welfare Policy: Dynamics of Formulation and Change. By David A. Rochefort (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986. xii, 206p. $22.00, paper).

American social welfare policy: Dynamics of formulation and change, by David A. Rochefort. Boulder: Westview Press, 1986, 206pp. Price: $22.00 paper

Journal of Policy Analysis and ManagementVolume 6, Issue 3 p. 451-456 Book Review American social welfare policy: Dynamics of formulation and change, by David A. Rochefort. Boulder: Westview Press, 1986, 206pp. Price: $22.00 paper Laurence E. Lynn Jr., Laurence E. Lynn Jr. Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of ChicagoSearch for more papers by this author Laurence E. Lynn Jr., Laurence E. Lynn Jr. Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of ChicagoSearch for more papers by this author First published: Spring 1987 https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.4050060313AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume6, Issue3Spring 1987Pages 451-456 RelatedInformation

American Social Welfare Policy

American Social Welfare Policy