Chapter 16-Welfare and Education Policy: Providing for Personal Security and Need

In the broadest sense, social welfare policy includes any effort by government to improve social
conditionsIn a narrower sense, social welfare policy refers to government programs that help
individuals meet basic needs, including food, clothing, and shelterThe poor: Who and How
Many?
Although Americans are far better off economically than most of the worlds peoples, poverty is
a significant and persistent problem in the US The government defines the poverty line as the
annual cost of thrifty food budget for an urban family of four, multiplied by three to include the
cost of housing, clothes, and other necessities
Poverty is concentrated among certain groups
Children with single mother families
Minority groups members African Americans and Hispanics
Geographically concentrated Southern states
More prevalent in rural areas
In that the level of poverty is high in some innercity areas
Suburbs are safe haven from povertyMost Americans greatly underestimate the level
of poverty in the US Living in Poverty: By Choice or ChanceMany Americans hold to the idea
thatpoverty is largely a matter of choiceYet most poor Americans are in theirsituation as a result
of circumstance rather than choice
The Politics and Policies of Social Welfare
Negative government holds that government governs best by staying out of peoples lives, so that
they can determine their own pursuits and become selfreliantThe Great Depression changed that
outlook
Positive government is the idea that government intervention is necessary in order to enhance
persona liberty and security when individuals are buffeted by economic and social forces beyond
their controlMany Republicans leaders clung to traditional ideas about selfreliance and free
markets
Most programs that support individuals are e entitlement programs, meaning that any individual

who meets the eligibility criteria is entitled to the benefit Individualbenefit programs fall into
two broad groups: social insurance programs and public assistance programs
Social insurance programs enjoy broader public support, are more heavily funded, and provide
benefits to individuals of all income levelsPublic assistance programs have less public support,
receive less funding, and are restricted to people of low income

Social Insurance Program

More than fifty million Americans receive monthly benefits from social insurance programsThe
cost of the two major programs, social security and Medicare, exceeds one trillion dollars a year
Such programs are labeled social insurance because eligibility is restricted to individuals who
paid special payroll taxes during their working yearsSocial Security
The main social insurance program is social security for retirees
Run entirely by the federal government
Society Security Act of 1935
Funded through payroll taxes on employees and employers
Although people qualify for social security by paying payroll taxes during their
working years, the money they receive upon retirement is funded by payroll taxes on current
workers salaries
Poses a threat to the longterm viability of the social security program because people
are living longer than they once did
Fewer workers relative to the number of retirees

 Inflow in payroll taxes from workers will be less than the outflow of social security
benefits to retirees Unemployment Insurance
The 1935 Social Security Act provides for unemployment benefits
Unemployment insurance is a join federalstate program
The federal government collects the payroll deciding whether the taxes will be paid by
both employees and employers or by employers only
The unemployment program does not have the broad public support that social
security enjoys
The situation reflects the widespread assumption that the loss of a job, or the failure to
find a new one right away, is often a personal failing
Unemployment statistics indicate otherwise Medicare
President Harry S Truman
The American Medicare Association called Trumans plan unAmerican
President John F. Kennedy proposed a health care program restricted to social security
recipients, but the AMA, the insurance industry, and congressional conservatives succeeded in
blocking the plan
The 1964 election result was Medicare
The program provides medical assistance to retirees and is funded primarily through
payroll taxes
Medicare is based on the insurance principle, and because of this, it has gained as
much public support as social security
Medicare does not cover all hospital, nursing home, or physicians fees, but enrollees
the program have the option of paying an insurance premium for fuller coverage of these fees
Public Assistance Programs Unlike social insurance programs, public assistance programs are
funded through general tax revenues and are available only to the financially needy Eligibility
for these programs is established by a means tests; that is, applicants must prove that they are
poor enough to qualify for the benefitAmericans are far less supportive of public assistance
programs than they are of social insurance programsAmericans tend to look upon social

insurance benefits as having been earned by the recipient, whereas they see public assistance
benefits as handouts Support for public assistance programs is weakened further by Americans
perception that the government is already spending vast amounts on welfare Supplemental
Security Income (SSI)
Supplemental Security Income is a major public assistance program that originated as
federal assistance to the blind and elderly poor as part of the Social Security Act of 1935
Primarily a federal program, the states have retained some control over benefits and
eligibility and provide some of the funding
Not widely criticizedTemporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
Head Start
In the 1960s, as part of Lyndon Johnsons Great Society, the federal government
started an education program, Head Start, aimed at helping poor children at an early age
Head Start provides free preschool education to lowincome children in order to help
them succeed when they begin kindergarten
The low point was reached in the 1980s, when there was only enough money to enroll
one in then of those eligible
Today, less than half of all eligible children get to participate
Head Start has not met theperformance goalsexpected when itwas foundedbecause
many ofthe enrolledchildren have ahome environmentthat is notconducive to educational
achievement, their academic performance in primary school is not substantially higher than that
of other poor children

Before passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, needy Americans families had an openended
guarantee of cash assistanceAs long as their income was below a certain level, they were assured
of government supportAFDC was an entitlement program, which meant that any single parent
living in poverty could claim the benefit and keep it for as long as a dependent child was in the
householdCreating what was called a vicious cycle of povertyTANFs goals is to reduce long
term welfare dependency by limiting the length of time recipients can receive assistance and by
giving the states an incentive to place welfare recipients into jobsThe state programs operate
within strict federal guidelinesAlthough states can grant exceptions to some of the rules, the

exceptions are limited

States can even choose to impose more restrictive rules in some
reapsThe biggest challenge facing the states has been the creation of welfaretowork programs
that are effective enough to qualify people for secure jobs

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

A fulltime job does not guarantee that a family will rise above the poverty line
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that roughly 10 percent of fulltime
workers, the socalled working poor, do not earn enough to lift their family above the poverty
line
Some of these workers are eligible to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit
Enacted in 1975 under President Gerald Ford and expanded during the presidencies of
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, EITC now covers about 10 million lowincome American
families
Although the EITC is subject to budgetary and political pressures, it has more public
support than most assistance programs
The reason is simple: EITC is tied to employment
Only those who work are eligible to receive the payment In-kind Benefits: Food

Stamps and Housing Vouchers

The Food Stamps program, which took its present form in 1961, is fully funded by the
federal government
The program provides an inkind benefitnot case, but food stamps that can be spent
only on grocery items
Food stamps are available only to people who qualify on the basis of low income
Some critics say that food stamps stigmatize their users by making it obvious to
onlookers in the checkout line that they are welfare cases
More prevalent criticism are that the program is too costly and that too many
undeserving people receive food stamps
Lowincome persons are also eligible for subsidized housing
Like other public assistance programs, housing subsidies are criticized as being too
costly Medicaid
Medicaid provides health care for the poor
It is a public assistance program, rather than a social insurance program like Medicare,
because it is based on need of funded by general tax revenues
As health care costs have spiraled far ahead of the inflation rate, so have the costs of
Medicaid
It absorbs roughly half of all public assistance dollars spend by the US government
and has forced state and local governments to cut other services to meet their share of the costs
Medicare is now the first or second biggest budget item for most states
Medicaid has been criticized for supposedly helping too ma y people who could take
care of themselves The SCHIP Program
Enacted in 1997 at the urging of President Bill Clinton, the State Childrens Health
Insurance Program provides health insurance for uninsured children of lowerincome families
that do not quality for Medicaid insurance
States can opt out of the program and have some flexibility in setting eligibility

criteria
A decade after the CHIP program began, enrollment has risen to more than 6 million
children
When the program was reauthorized in 2009 at the urging of President Obama, it was
expanded to include an additional 4 million children and also pregnant women
An increase in taxes on tobacco products was used to fund the expansion The 2010
Health Care Reform Act
Although the heath care reform bill passed by Congress in 2010 expanded the
Medicaid program, it aims to increase health insurance coverage primarily through mandates on
individuals and companies
Starting in 2014, individual Americans will face a tax penalty if they dont have health
insurance
Lowincome individuals will be legible for a federal subsidy in order to enable them
to afford insurance coverage
Most companies with more than two hundred employees will be required to provide
their employees with health insurance and most companies with fifty to two hundred employees
will have to provide insurance or pay a tax penalty
Hold down insurance costs in order to ease the burden on individuals and firms
Statebased insurance exchanges that will negotiate with insurance companies to
obtain the lowest insurance rates possible
Prohibits a number of insurance practices
Critics have challenged the CBOs estimate and have derided the program as the
federalization of health insurance Culture and Social Welfare Most Americans are convinced
that people on welfare could get along without it if they triedThere is constant political pressure
to reduce welfare expenditures and to wee out underserving recipients The result is a welfare
system that is both inefficient, in that much of the money spend on welfare never reaches the
intended recipients, and inequitable, in that less than half of social welfare spending goes to the
people most in need Inefficiency The US has the most inefficient welfare system in the Western
worldThe unwritten principle that the individual must somehow earn or be in absolute need of
assistance makes the US welfare system heavily bureaucratic The bureaucratic costs of welfare

are substantially lower in Europe because most European countries have unitary rather than
federal systems, which eliminates a layer of government, and also because eligibility is often
universal, as in the case of governmentpaid health care Inequity The US spends as much, ore
more, on assistance programs for the nonpoor than it does for the poor
Education as Equality of Opportunity

Although few Americans would support economic equality for all, most Americans endorse the
principle of e quality of opportunity the idea that people should have a reasonable chance to
succeed if they make the effortEquality of opportunity is an idea. Americans do not start life on
an equal footing Public Education: Leveling through Schools
During the nations first century, the question of free education for all children was a divisive
issue
Wealthy interests feared that an educated public would challenge their power Egalitarians, on the
other hand, saw education as a means of enabling ordinary citizens to get aheadEquality
continues to be a guiding principle of public education
Unlike the situation in countries that divide children even the grade school
level into different tracks that lead ultimately to different occupations, the
curriculum in US schools is relatively standardized
The US through its public schools seeks to broadly education its children
Public education in America was labeled the great level when it began in the the
early 19 century, and the tradition has been maintainedThe nations education system preserves
both the myth and the reality of an equalopportunity societyThe belief that success iswithin the
reach of anyonewho works for it could not besustained if the publiceducation system were

designed to serve theprivileged fewMoreover, educationalattainment is related topersonal

success, at least asmeasured by incomeIn fact, the gap in incomebetween those with and those
without a college degree isgreater now than at any timein the countrys history

Improving Americas Schools

Because Americas public schools play such a key role in creating an equalopportunity society,
they are scrutinized closelyParents of schoolchildren are not shy about saying what they think of
their local schools
Parents tend to rate their own childrens schools more highly than they rate other schools
Americas students are not high performers
US students rank below students in Canada and most European countries on
standardized reading, math, and science test
One reason is that the US has al larger portion of nonnativespeaking children
More segregated residentially by income than are European countries
Poor children are more likely to go to schools where most of the other students are
also poor
Because the wealth of a community affects the level of school funding, schools with a
high proportion of poor students tend to have fewer resources School Choice Advocates of
school choice say that a student should have the option of leaving a poorly performing school in
favor of one that might provide a better education The students new school should get the
funding that otherwise

Mandatory High Stakes Training

In 2001, President George W. Bush persuaded Congress to pass the No Child Left
Behind Act
Schools that show no improvements in students test scores after two years receive an
increased amount of federal aid

 If these schools show no improvement by the end of the third year, their students
become eligible to transfer elsewhere, and their schools federal assistance is reduced
The national testing process has nearly forced public schools to concentrate on tested
subjects
Law forces teachers to teach to the national test, undermining true learning
Democrats have claimed that the program has failed to provide struggling schools
with enough funds to improve their quality of classroom education
Republicans have generally supported the law, saying that it holds teachers and
schools accountable for student performance would have gone to the students former schoolThis
policy, it is claimed, forces school administrators and teachers to do a better job, or face the
continued loss of students and funding
Opponents of the policy do not defend poorly performing schools but instead argue that school
choice will only serve to weaken these schools further
They claim that the policy benefits middle and upperincome students because the parents of
poor children lack the means to transport them to a better but more distant school
School choice has gained momentum in recent years The emergence of charter schools is a case
in point
Operate by different standardsHave greater freedom in determining their curricula and in picking
their studentsMust meet specified accountability criteria
School vouchers are another way of expanding student choice Proponents say that vouchers
force failing public schools to improve their instructional programs or face a permanent loss of
revenueOpponents argue that vouchers weaken the public schools by siphoning off revenue and
say that vouchers subsidize many families that would have sent their children to private of
parochial schools anywayVouchers are of little use to students from poor families because
vouchers families do not have the money to pay the rest
Although the courts have upheld the constitutionality of vouchers in some circumstances, polls
indicate that Americans are divided over the issue of school vouchers
The question gets majority support when it is framed in the context of giving students a choice
among pubic schoolsBut opposed by the majority when private and parochial schools are
included in the choices

 The American way of Promoting the General Welfare

For only some citizens