Chapter Nineteen
Social Welfare
Types of Programs

Benefit most citizens, no means test (e.g., Social
Security and Medicare)

Benefit a few citizens, means tested (e.g. Medicaid
and Food Stamps)
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Popular Support

Majoritarian benefit programs are sacrosanct

The appeal of client-based, means-tested programs
changes with popular opinion
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Social Welfare in the United States

The appeal of client-based, means-tested programs
changes with popular opinion

America has been slower than other nations to
embrace the welfare state

State and private enterprise play a large role in
administering welfare programs

Non-governmental organizations play a large role
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Non-Governmental OrganizationsNGO’s
 Contracts
and grants are awarded to national
non-profit organizations, such as Big Brothers
Big Sisters, Jewish Federations, and Catholic
Charities, among others
 Charitable
Choice: provision that allowed
religious non-profit organizations to compete for
grants to administer welfare-to-work and
related policies
 Faith-based
organizations playing prominent
roles in urban welfare-to-work programs.
Controversy over whether or not this blurs
church/state boundaries
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Social Security Act of 1935

Insurance for the unemployed and elderly—workers
contribute and benefit

Everybody is eligible for insurance programs

Assistance for dependent children, the blind, and
the elderly

Assistance programs are means tested
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Medicare Act of 1965

Medical benefits were omitted in 1935 in order to
ensure passage of the Social Security Act

Covers medical care for the poor and pays doctors’
bills for the elderly
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Who Benefits?

The public insists that it be only those who cannot
help themselves

There is a slow, steady change in popular views,
distinguishing between the deserving and the
undeserving

The American public prefers to give services, not
money, to help the “deserving poor”
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Reforming Welfare Programs

Problem: there will soon be insufficient people
paying Social Security taxes to provide benefits for
every retired person

Most solutions are opposed by the public

Health care issues will remain on the political
agenda
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Table 19.2: Post–1970 Government
Health Care Spending in Ten
Countries
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Possible Solutions for Social Security

Raising the retirement age to 70, freezing retirement
benefits, and raising Social Security taxes

Privatizing Social Security

Combine the first two reforms, and allow citizens to
invest a portion of their Social Security taxes into
mutual funds
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Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF)

Block grant program

Had strict federal requirements about work, limited
how long families can receive federally funded
benefits

By 2003, welfare caseloads had declined nationally
by 60%
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Figure
19.1: SSI,
TANF, and
Food
Stamp
Recipients,
1980-2002
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Majoritarian Politics

Costs and benefits are widely distributed
• Examples: Social Security Act, Medicare Act

Question of legitimacy: conservatives argued that
nothing in the Constitution authorized the federal
government to spend money this way
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Client Politics

Family assistance politics are less about cost than
about the legitimacy of beneficiaries
• Example: TANF program

Beneficiaries changed: 1996-2003, able-bodied
adults had a harder time getting benefits, but childcare spending in most states rose by 50% or more
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