Social Policy: History (1950–1980)

Author(s):  
Mark J. Stern

Between 1950 and 1980, the United States developed a welfare state that in many ways was comparable to those of other advanced industrial nations. Building on its New Deal roots, the Social Security system came to provide a “social wage” to older Americans, people with disability, and the dependents of deceased workers. It created a health-care insurance system for the elderly, the disabled, and the poor. Using the tax system in innovative ways, the government encouraged the expansion of pension and health-care protection for a majority of workers and their families. By 1980, some Americans could argue that their identification as a “laggard” in the field of social provision was no longer justified.

This Oxford Handbook pulls together much of our current knowledge about the origins, development, functions, and challenges of American social policy. After the introduction, the first substantive part of the handbook offers a historical overview of U.S. social policy from the colonial era to the present. This is followed by a set of chapters on different theoretical perspectives for understanding and explaining the development of social policy in the United States. The four following parts of the volume focus on concrete social programs for the elderly, the poor and near-poor, the disabled, and workers and families. Policy areas covered include health care, pensions, food assistance, housing, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, workers’ compensation, family support, and programs for soldiers and veterans. The final part of the book focuses on some of the consequences of the U.S. welfare state for poverty, inequality, and citizenship. Many of the chapters comprising this handbook emphasize the disjointed patterns inherent in U.S. policy-making and the public-private mix of social provision in which the government helps certain groups of citizens directly (e.g., social insurance) or indirectly (e.g., tax expenditures, regulations). The contributing authors are experts from political science, sociology, history, economics, and other disciplines.


Liquidity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-118
Author(s):  
Iwan Subandi ◽  
Fathurrahman Djamil

Health is the basic right for everybody, therefore every citizen is entitled to get the health care. In enforcing the regulation for Jaringan Kesehatan Nasional (National Health Supports), it is heavily influenced by the foreign interests. Economically, this program does not reduce the people’s burdens, on the contrary, it will increase them. This means the health supports in which should place the government as the guarantor of the public health, but the people themselves that should pay for the health care. In the realization of the health support the are elements against the Syariah principles. Indonesian Muslim Religious Leaders (MUI) only say that the BPJS Kesehatan (Sosial Support Institution for Health) does not conform with the syariah. The society is asked to register and continue the participation in the program of Social Supports Institution for Health. The best solution is to enforce the mechanism which is in accordance with the syariah principles. The establishment of BPJS based on syariah has to be carried out in cooperation from the elements of Social Supports Institution (BPJS), Indonesian Muslim Religious (MUI), Financial Institution Authorities, National Social Supports Council, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, the Social Supports Institution for Helath (BPJS Kesehatan) based on syariah principles could be obtained and could became the solution of the polemics in the society.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
L. Lee

Dr. C.K. Clarke (1857-1924) was one of Canada’s most prominent psychiatrists. He sought to improve the conditions of asylums, helped to legitimize psychiatry and established formal training for nurses. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Canada experienced a surge of immigration. Yet – as many historians have shown – a widespread anti-foreigner sentiment within the public remained. Along with many other members of the fledgling eugenics movement, Clarke believed that the proportion of “mental defectives” was higher in the immigrant population than in the Canadian population and campaigned to restrict immigration. He appealed to the government to track immigrants and deport them once they showed signs of mental illness. Clarke’s efforts lead to amendments to the Immigration Act in 1919, which authorized deportation of people who were not Canadian-born, regardless of how many years that had been in Canada. This change applied not only to the mentally ill but also to those who could no longer work due to injury and to those who did not follow social norms. Clarke is a fascinating example of how we judge historical figures. He lived in a time where what we now think of as xenophobia was a socially acceptable, even worthy attitude. As a leader in eugenics, therefore, he was a progressive. Other biographers have recognized Clarke’s racist opinions, some of whom justify them as keeping with the social values of his era. In further exploring Clarke’s interest in these issues, this paper relies on his personal scrapbooks held in the CAMH archives. These documents contain personal papers, poems and stories that proclaim his anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner views. Whether we allow his involvement in the eugenics movement to overshadow his accomplishments or ignore his racist leanings to celebrate his memory is the subject of ongoing debate. Dowbiggin IR. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880-1940. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. McLaren A. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada 1885-1945. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. Roberts B. Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada 1900-1935. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.


2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allyson Behm

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that when quitam relators file a multi-claim complaint under the Fraudulent Claims Act (FCA), their share of the proceeds must be based on an individual analysis of each claim. More importantly, the court held that relators are not entitled to any portion of the settlement of a specific claim if that claim was subject to dismissal under section 3730(e)(4) Relator Merena filed a quitam suit against his employer, SmithKline Beecham (SKB), claiming, among other things, that SKB defrauded the government by billing for laboratory tests that were not performed, paying illegal kickbacks to health care providers, and participating in an “automated chemistry” scheme. Soon thereafter, additional relators filed suit.


Ekonomia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
Sylwia Wojtczak

Social policy toward old people in Poland — conditions, development and directions of changesSocial policy shapes people’s living conditions. In the era of dynamic demographic changes, especially the aging of the population observed in Poland and across the world, the activity of the state focused on improving the quality of life of the elderly is particularly important. Population aging is a demographic process of increasing the proportion of older people while reducing the proportion of children in the society of a given country. Elderly people will continue to be a part of society, mainly due to the progress of civilization, advances in modern medicine and the popularization of so-called healthy living.Social policy toward the elderly should not be limited to managing the social security system and social welfare. Eff ective use of human and social capital of the elderly will be a growing challenge for this policy, and for senior citizens — spending satisfactorily the last years of one’s life. However, for some senior citizens, old age means or will mean poverty and living on the margins of civil society. The Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Polic y is responsible for the social policy of people in Poland, off ering for example in the years 2014–2020 to senior citizens such programs as “Senior +”, the Government Program for Social Activity of the Elderly ASOS or “Care 75+.” Each of the above programs have appropriate criteria that must be met to be able to use them. Are older people eager to use them, or are the eff ects of these programs already visible? This study will attempt to answer the above questions. The main purpose of the article is to diagnose and analyze selected government programs targeted at older people. In addition, perspectives for changes in social policy toward older people in Poland will be determined.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katinka Linnamäki

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Hungarian Fidesz-KDNP government´s discursive practices of control and care during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper researches the Hungarian government’s communication on the official Hungarian COVID-19 Facebook page during the first wave of the pandemic. Its aim is to answer the question how the Hungarian government articulated control and care to reinforce sedimented gendered division of care work and institutions of control to tackle the potential disruption of the system of care before the widespread vaccination of the elderly population was available in the country. The paper argues that the pandemic has allowed the government to exert control in areas, such as the crisis in the workforce market and health care system, as well as in the destabilized system of care work. The main finding is that in the material the government performs control over care work, whose intensified discussion during the pandemic could lead to a potential disruption within the illiberal logic on two different levels. First, physical care work related to immediate physical needs, like hunger, clothing, pain enacted by female shoppers, female health care workers and female social workers, is newly defined during the pandemic as local, family-bound and a naturally female task. Second, the government articulates care work, either as potentially harmful (for the elderly population and thus indirectly to the government’s familialist politics), or as vulnerable and in need of protection from outside influences (portrayed through the interaction of health care workers and “hospital commanders”). This enables the government to perform full state control over care workers through the mobilization of police and military masculinity and to strengthen and re-naturalize the already existing hierarchies between traditional gender roles from a new perspective during the pandemic. This state of affairs highlights the vulnerability both of the elderly population, on whom its familialism builds, and of the system of informal care work, which builds on the unpaid care work of female citizens, who paradoxically are also articulated as potential harm for the elderly and for the system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (12) ◽  
pp. 855-867
Author(s):  
Elika Sifra Lidya ◽  
Mitro Subroto

LAPAS or Correctional Institution under the auspices of the Directorate General of Corrections is the final place of the criminal justice system process that fosters and integrates the social of convicts, so that when returning to society they are able to live a normal life. Elderly (according to Law No. 13 of 1998: Elderly) is a person whose age reaches the age of 60 years and above. In its efforts, Correctional Services interpret this understanding by regulating the rights of inmates contained in Law no. 12 of 1995 article 14 paragraph 1.The increasing age and declining body condition of the elderly inmates need special treatment both in health, treatment, and public services. Elderly inmates as much as possible are treated as people usually are, it's just that the place and application are different. This is for the implementation of part of Human Rights (HAM) as a national instrument. This special handling effort involves other stakeholders be it medical or health workers and the government to support the infrastructure needed. The elderly as one of the vulnerable groups become important objects in terms of how decent handlers are so that they feel cared for in their twilight years. Although until now still in the process and stages of refinement of special handling for them. The fact is still not optimal and this study illustrates how well the effort is.


2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (02) ◽  
pp. 97-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIM MING LEE ◽  
CHING YIN CHENG

Rising economic inequality becomes an important concern for both advanced and developing countries. Nonetheless, political and business elites around the world never question the neoliberal agenda, despite economic crises happening every now and then. The year 2007 may mark the turning point of neoliberal globalisation. As the global financial tsunami kicked off from the burst of the subprime mortgage bubble in the United States in 2007, the global economy is facing an economic hardship never heard of since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Hong Kong as a highly open economy is also severely hurt by the financial tsunami. In every economic recession, all Hong Kong people suffer, but lower classes suffer most. This raises a serious question about whether the current social protection system adequately protects people against an increasingly risky global economic environment. By examining the social policy package adopted by the HK government in fighting against the financial tsunami, we show the lack of long-term strategies and commitments of the government in protecting HK people against globalisation risks and economic insecurity. By drawing experiences from other countries, we suggest that active labour market policies (ALMPs) may be the social policy tools the government can use to reform the social protection system.


2021 ◽  
pp. 114-123
Author(s):  
Mark Robert Rank ◽  
Lawrence M. Eppard ◽  
Heather E. Bullock

Chapter 15 provides an analysis of the effectiveness of social welfare programs in reducing poverty. Comparing pretransfer with post-transfer rates of poverty across a range of OECD countries demonstrates that poverty can be substantially reduced. The myth that government programs do not work in addressing poverty is simply incorrect. A number of European countries are able to cut their rates of poverty by up to 80 percent as a result of robust social policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality. In the United States, the Social Security and Medicare programs have been particularly effective in reducing the poverty rate among the elderly population.


Author(s):  
Jeanine Kraybill

The American Catholic Church has a long history in health care. At the turn of 19th century, Catholic nuns began developing the United States’ first hospital and health care systems, amassing a high level of professionalization and expertise in the field. The bishops also have a well-established record advocating for healthcare, stemming back to 1919 with the Bishops’ Program for Social Reconstruction, which called for affordable and comprehensive care, particularly for the poor and vulnerable. Moving into the latter part of the 20th century, the bishops continued to push for health care reform. However, in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade (1973), the American bishops insisted that any reform or form of universal health care be consistent with the Church’s teaching against abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. The bishops were also adamant that health care policy respect religious liberty and freedom of conscience. In 1993, these concerns caused the bishops to pull their support for the Clinton Administration’s Health Security Act, since the bill covered abortion as a medical and pregnancy-related service. The debate over health care in the 1990s served as a precursor for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) opposition to the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) contraception mandate. The ACA also highlighted a divide within the Church on health care among religious leaders. For example, progressive female religious leadership organizations, such as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and their affiliate NETWORK (a Catholic social justice lobby), took a different position than the bishops and supported the ACA, believing it had enough protections against federally funded abortion. Though some argue this divide lead to institutional scrutiny of the sisters affiliated with the LCWR and NETWORK, both the bishops and the nuns have held common ground on lobbying the government for affordable, comprehensive, and universal health care.


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