Download or read book The Politics of Social Policy in the United States written by Margaret Weir and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume places the welfare debates of the 1980s in the context of past patterns of U.S. policy, such as the Social Security Act of 1935, the failure of efforts in the 1940s to extend national social benefits and economic planning, and the backlashes against "big government" that followed reforms of the 1960s and early 1970s. Historical analysis reveals that certain social policies have flourished in the United States: those that have appealed simultaneously to middle-class and lower-income people, while not involving direct bureaucratic interventions into local communities. The editors suggest how new family and employment policies, devised along these lines, might revitalize broad political coalitions and further basic national values. The contributors are Edwin Amenta, Robert Aponte, Mary Jo Bane, Kenneth Finegold, John Myles, Kathryn Neckerman, Gary Orfield, Ann Shola Orloff, Jill Quadagno, Theda Skocpol, Helene Slessarev, Beth Stevens, Margaret Weir, and William Julius Wilson.

Download or read book The Limits of Social Policy written by Nathan Glazer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many social policies of the 1960s and 1970s, designed to overcome poverty and provide a decent minimum standard of living for all Americans, ran into trouble in the 1980s--with politicians, with social scientists, and with the American people. Nathan Glazer has been a leading analyst and critic of those measures. Here he looks back at what went wrong, arguing that our social policies, although targeted effectively on some problems, ignored others that are equally important and contributed to the weakening of the structures--family, ethnic and neighborhood ties, commitment to work--that form the foundations of a healthy society. What keeps society going, after all, is that most people feel they should work, however well they might do without working, and that they should take care of their families, however attractive it might appear on occasion to desert them. Glazer proposes new kinds of social policies that would strengthen social structures and traditional restraints. Thus, to reinforce the incentive to work, he would attach to low-income jobs the same kind of fringe benefits--health insurance, social security, vacations with pay--that now make higher-paying jobs attractive and that paradoxically are already available in some form to those on welfare. More generally, he would reorient social policy to fit more comfortably with deep and abiding tendencies in American political culture: toward volunteerism, privatization, and decentralization. After a long period of quiescence, social policy and welfare reform are once again becoming salient issues on the national political agenda. Nathan Glazer's deep knowledge and considered judgment, distilled in this book, will be a source of advice, ideas, and inspiration for citizens and policymakers alike.

Download or read book What is Social Policy written by Daniel Beland and published by Polity. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From housing, pensions and family benefits, to health care, unemployment insurance and social assistance, the welfare state is a key aspect of our lives. This book provides a concise political and sociological introduction to social policy, helping readers to grasp the nature of social programs and the political struggles surrounding them.

Download or read book U S Health in International Perspective written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Download or read book Protecting Soldiers and Mothers written by Theda Skocpol and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a commonplace that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. During the late nineteenth century, competitive party politics in American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and their families. But such hopes went against the logic of political reform in the Progressive Era. Generous social spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead, the nation nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as the federal government and more than forty states enacted social spending, labor regulations, and health education programs to assist American mothers and children. Remarkably, as Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned from electoral politics, they turned their energies to creating huge, nation-spanning federations of local women's clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules, political parties, and earlier public policies combined to determine both the opportunities and the limits within which social policies were devised and changed by reformers and politically active social groups over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining afresh the institutional, cultural, and organizational forces that have shaped U.S. social policies in the past, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers challenges us to think in new ways about what might be possible in the American future.

Download or read book The Divided Welfare State written by Jacob S. Hacker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-09 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book Aging and Social Policy in the United States written by Nancy Kusmaul and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aging and Social Policy in the United States guides students through an exploration of social policies and policymaking that address the needs of older adults and their families. It situates the experiences of older adults in the context of their environment, examining social welfare policies that affect the rights and interests of older adults. The book begins with an introductory unit, providing a foundation for the book, defining key terms, describing how to analyze the impacts of a policy on a population, and examining the ways in which policy is positioned within societal assumptions. Utilizing the life course perspective, the middle three units of this book situate individual biological and psychological challenges of aging in the context of how they are addressed by individuals, families, and societies, identifying the strengths and challenges of existing and proposed social policies at each of these levels. The concluding unit provides comparative insights as to how aging issues are addressed in a sample of countries around the world. Aging and Social Policy in the United States provides undergraduate and graduate students with critical knowledge and perspectives on the complexities of addressing the needs of an aging population.

Download or read book Social Policy in the United States written by Theda Skocpol and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health care, welfare, Social Security, employment programs--all are part of ongoing national debates about the future of social policy in the United States. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, Theda Skocpol shows how historical understanding, centered on governmental institutions and political alliances, can illuminate the limits and possibilities of American social policymaking both past and present. Skocpol dispels the myth that Americans are inherently hostile to social spending and suggests why President Clinton's health care agenda was so quickly attacked despite the support of most Americans for his goals.

Download or read book Social Work and Social Policy written by Ira C. Colby and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive overview of domestic and global social welfare policy Written by a team of renowned social policy experts sharing their unique perspectives on global and U.S. social welfare policy issues, Social Work and Social Policy helps social workers consider key issues that face policymakers, elected officials, and agency administrators in order to develop policies that are both fair and just. Designed as a foundational social welfare policy text, this important book meets the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). Encouraging readers' critical thinking on various issues, each chapter begins with an overarching question and "what if" scenarios, and ends with a set of suggested key terms, online resources, and discussion questions. Recognizing that policy work requires practitioners to be as fully versed as possible with the issue at hand, Social Work and Social Policy thoroughly explores: Social welfare policy as a form of social justice The evolution of the American welfare state Human security and the welfare of societies Social policy from a global perspective Challenges for social policies in Asia Welfare reform and the need for social empathy The U.S. Patriot Act and its implications for the social work profession Human rights and emerging social media Compelling and broad in scope, Social Work and Social Policy is an indispensable text for students and a valuable resource for practitioners concerned with creating social policy and governmental action guided by justice for all.

Download or read book The Handbook of Social Policy written by James Midgley and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2000 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprises 33 papers grouped under five themes: The Nature of social policy; The History of social policy; Social policy and the social services; The Political economy of social policy; and International and future perspectives on social policy.

Download or read book The Hidden Welfare State written by Christopher Howard and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1999-02-22 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite costing hundreds of billions of dollars and subsidizing everything from homeownership and child care to health insurance, tax expenditures (commonly known as tax loopholes) have received little attention from those who study American government. This oversight has contributed to an incomplete and misleading portrait of U.S. social policy. Here Christopher Howard analyzes the "hidden" welfare state created by such programs as tax deductions for home mortgage interest and employer-provided retirement pensions, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit. Basing his work on the histories of these four tax expenditures, Howard highlights the distinctive characteristics of all such policies. Tax expenditures are created more routinely and quietly than traditional social programs, for instance, and over time generate unusual coalitions of support. They expand and contract without deliberate changes to individual programs. Howard helps the reader to appreciate the historic links between the hidden welfare state and U.S. tax policy, which accentuate the importance of Congress and political parties. He also focuses on the reasons why individuals, businesses, and public officials support tax expenditures. The Hidden Welfare State will appeal to anyone interested in the origins, development, and structure of the American welfare state. Students of public finance will gain new insights into the politics of taxation. And as policymakers increasingly promote tax expenditures to address social problems, the book offers some sobering lessons about how such programs work.

Download or read book Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States written by Philip R. Popple and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-26 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first new social work history to be written in over twenty years, Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States presents a history of the field from the perspective of elites, service providers, and recipients. This book uniquely chronicles and analyzes the development of social work practice theory on two levels: from the top down, looking at the writings, conference presentations, and training course material developed by leaders of the profession; and from the bottom up, looking at case records for evidence of techniques that were actually applied by social workers in the field. Additionally, the author takes a careful and critical look at the development of social work methods, setting it apart from existing histories that generally accept the effectiveness of the field's work. Addressing CSWE EPAS standards at both the BSW and MSW levels, Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States is ideal both as a primary text for history of social work/social welfare classes and a supplementary text for introduction to social work/social welfare or social welfare policy and services classes.

Download or read book Development and Social Policy written by Christian Aspalter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, government and policymakers around the world have shifted their attention away from money-oriented, supply-side economics to institutional economics and people-oriented social and economic development. Issues such as poverty reduction, win-win solutions and strategies in social policy and their implementation, universalization, and a variety of new large-scale conditional cash transfers programs have become ever-present in the global discussion about development and social policy. This book provides win-win strategies for social policies on the ground, as developed and put forward by the normative theoretical paradigm of Developmental Social Policy (DSP). Taking the state-of-the-art general development theory as a starting point of reference and discussion, it goes on to discuss in detail the key win-win strategies that form the basis and core of the DSP paradigm. It examines key related issues such as the performance of provident fund systems, the performance of conditional cash transfer systems (especially their elements that are based on asset- and means-testing), universalism and extension in social security provision in the context of especially developing countries, and "non-economically targeted" social welfare benefits and services. Providing fully-fledged theoretical guidance paired with key social policy strategies and solutions, it will be highly valuable for students and scholars of social policy, development studies, and Asia Pacific studies.

Download or read book Uneven Social Policies written by Sara Niedzwiecki and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social policies can transform the lives of the poor, yet subnational politics and state capacity often inhibit their success.

Download or read book Social Policies for Children written by Irwin Garfinkel and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2001-08-09 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successful social policies for children are critical to America's future. Yet the status of children in America suggests that the nation's policies may not be serving them well. Infant and child mortality rates in the U.S. remain high compared to other western industrialized nations; child poverty rates have worsened in the past decade; poor health care, child abuse, and inadequate schooling and child care persist. This book presents a new set of social policies designed to alleviate these problems and to help satisfy the needs of all children. The policies deal with the seven critical domains affecting children from birth through the passage to adulthood: child care, schooling, transition to work, health care, income security, physical security, and child abuse. While nearly everyone agrees that children are in trouble, there is considerable debate over what kind of trouble they are in, why this is so, and whether government can or should more actively seek to solve these problems. Americans are evenly divided on the question of whether children's problems are more economic or moral in origin. The seven proposals in this volume both reflect and cut across ideological disagreements. Some call for more government, others call for less, and all call for different government methods for achieving socially agreed upon goals. Recommendations include: replacing major welfare programs and tax subsidies with a set of universal policies, including national health insurance, child support assurance, and universal child care; offering publicly funded vouchers to allow poor children in inner-city neighborhoods to choose their own schools; using both private and governmental resources to get tough on crime through more stringent criminal justice policies and dramatic social measures; and expanding apprenticeship programs for non-college bound youths. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Barbara R. Bergmann and Robert I. Lerman, America

Download or read book The Color of Social Policy written by Betty Garcia and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Double Standard written by James W. Russell and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2010-12-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Double Standard analyzes how and why social policy and welfare states evolved differently in Western Europe and the United States. Exploring common social problems—from poverty to family support to ethnic and racial conflict—the book shows the disparate consequences to these different approaches. The new edition includes the latest available statistical information, an analysis of the 2010 health care reform in the United States, and a discussion comparing the social consequences of the recent recession in the U.S. and Europe.