A Comparison of the Reagan and Thatcher Administrations' Efforts to Reform Social Security in the United States and the United Kingdom

1995 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
A S Clark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Retirement Pension ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Pension Program

A comparison is made between the records of the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in their efforts to reform, respectively, the social security program in the United States and the retirement pension program in the United Kingdom. It is found that the Reagan administration was much less successful in attaining its reform agenda than was the Thatcher government. The discrepancies in the records of the two administrations were traced to four central factors: (1) the reform strategy of the two governments; (2) the strength of the elderly lobby in the two countries; (3) the legacy of past policy; (4) institutional structure.

scholarly journals Combating In-Work Poverty in Continental Europe: An Investigation Using the Belgian Case

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
IVE MARX ◽  
JOSEFINE VANHILLE ◽  
GERLINDE VERBIST
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Tax Relief

AbstractRecent studies find in-work poverty to be a pan-European phenomenon. Yet in-work poverty has come to the fore as a policy issue only recently in most continental European countries. Policies implemented in the United States and the United Kingdom, most notably in-work benefit schemes, are much discussed. This article argues that if it comes to preventing and alleviating poverty among workers, both the policy options and constraints facing Continental European policymakers are fundamentally different from those facing Anglo-Saxon policymakers. Consequently, policies that work in one setting cannot be simply emulated elsewhere. We present microsimulation derived results for Belgium to illustrate some of these points. Policy options discussed and simulated include: higher minimum wages, reductions in employee social security contributions, tax relief for low-paid workers and the implementation of a stylised version of the British Working Tax Credit. The latter measure has the strongest impact on in-work poverty, but in settings where wages are compressed, as in Belgium, a severe trade-off between coverage and budgetary cost presents itself. The article concludes that looking beyond targeted measures to universal benefits and support for employment of carers may be important components of an overall policy package to tackle in-work poverty.

scholarly journals Redistribution and Insurance in Welfare States Around the World

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bartels ◽  
Dirk Neumann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Income Smoothing ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Long Run ◽  
High Level

Redistribution across individuals in a one-year-period framework is an empirically intensely studied question. However, a substantial share of annual redistribution might turn out to serve individual insurance in a longer perspective, reducing the level of actual redistribution across individuals. This paper investigates to what extent long-run redistribution diverges from annual redistribution in welfare states of different types. Exploiting panel data from the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) for Australia, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we find that welfare states like Germany that are assumed to engage in a high level of redistribution actually achieve relatively less redistribution between individuals in the long run than the United Kingdom or the United States. Regression results show that a higher share of elderly in a country is associated with more annual redistribution, but with less long-run redistribution between individuals. The results suggest that, in welfare states with aging populations, we might expect growing annual redistribution that, to a substantial extent, is in fact income smoothing for the elderly. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper Series)

Comparing the United States and United Kingdom: contrasts and correspondences

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Klein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Assisted Death ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Care Systems

AbstractThe conventionally antithetical stereotypes of the United Kingdom and United States health care systems needs to be modified in the case of the elderly. Relative to the rest of the population, the over-65s in the United States are more satisfied with their medical care than their UK counterparts. There is also much common ground: shared worries about the quality of elderly care and similar attitudes towards assisted death. Comparison is further complicated by within country variations: comparative studies should take account of the fact that even seemingly polar models may have pools of similarity.

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