ap gov chap 19
TRANSCRIPT
Chapter Nineteen
Social Welfare
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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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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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Non-Governmental Organizations
• Contracts and grants are awarded to national non-profit organizations, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, Jewish Federations, and Catholic Charities
• 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
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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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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: Health Care Spending in the United States and Abroad, 2001
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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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Table 19.1: Public Views on Reforming Social Security
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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
U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2003, 371, 374.
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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 child-care spending in most states rose by 50% or more