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The Welfare State. Traditionally, the American welfare system consisted of voluntary organizations, church and religious groups, and local communities.
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The Welfare State Traditionally, the American welfare system consisted of voluntary organizations, church and religious groups, and local communities. The Great Depression exposed the limits of this traditional system and impressed upon many that the government had a role in providing relief to the poor and infirmed.
The Welfare State Through his New Deal programs, President Franklin Roosevelt offered a program of increased government intervention in the economy and society that established a federal welfare system.
Social Policy Two New Deal programs – welfare (AFDC) and Social Security – exemplify the politics of social policies.
Welfare Programs Welfare programs, like AFDC, engender conflict: • They are “noncontributory” programs (beneficiaries do not, and in most instances cannot, contribute to the support they get from this program). • The program is funded by redistributing resources from others in society to the needy. • Resentment from contributors who perceive few personal benefits make welfare programs widely unpopular. Recipients tend to have less political power than contributors.
Social Security Social Security, by contrast, is a remarkably popular social policy.
Social Security • Social Security, a system of forced savings, is a “contributory” program in which recipients contribute to their own benefits. • Most Americans support Social Security, in part, because they do not perceive that it is aimed at redistributing wealth and because they expect, one day, to benefit from the program.
Welfare Reform The unpopularity of welfare policies led both Democrats and Republicans to champion reform in the 1980s and 1990s. By the mid-1990s, Democrats and Republicans replaced AFDC with a program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).
Welfare Reform Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF): • Established guidelines aimed at moving people from welfare to work. • Transferred the administration of welfare from the national government to the state level.
Opening Opportunity Equal opportunity is a core value in American politics and society. Many social policies are aimed at opening opportunities for people to keep them from falling into poverty and to allow society to benefit from the skills and ingenuity of those who otherwise might not succeed.
Social Policy To maintain equal opportunity, the government uses social policies to promote: • access to education • employment and training programs • good individual and public health • access to affordable housing
Who Gets What from Social Policy? Different groups received different levels and kinds of benefits from government social policies. • the elderly • middle class • working poor • non-working poor • minorities, women and children
Social Policy Both because they are deemed deserving and because of their political power as a voting bloc, the elderly benefit from social policies like Medicare and Social Security.
Social Policy Through their employers, middle class families benefit from shadow welfare state benefits including pensions and health insurance. And, the government helps to ensure the social well-being of middle class families through tax expenditure policies that provide the middle class tax exemptions like the one for home mortgages.
Social Policy Recently expanded social policies like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and more traditional programs like food stamps recognize that some working Americans still do not make enough money to live; these people, the working poor, benefit from these and other social programs.
Social Policy Programs like TANF and Medicaid are available to help those who do not or cannot work. These social welfare programs are among the most controversial social policies and their recipients have the fewest political resources.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? • What social policies benefit you? Student loans? Support for your college or university? • Which of these social policies do you think are essential to maintaining equal opportunity in America? • In what ways are social policies the product of well-intentioned policy makers trying to improve American society? In what ways do they result from the political power of their recipients?
