scholarly journals Less Bang for Your Buck? How Social Capital Constrains the Effectiveness of Social Welfare Spending

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mallory E. Compton
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Open Question

Rising economic insecurity in recent decades has focused attention on the importance of social welfare programs in managing household financial stability. Some governments are more effective than others in managing this outcome, and informal social institutions help explain why. Social capital is expected to shape economic security through multiple mechanisms, but whether the effect is to magnify or mitigate volatility is an open question. Part of the answer has to do with how social capital interacts with policy implementation, and whether it conditions the effectiveness of government spending. Evidence from the U.S. states from 1986 to 2010 fails to support a benevolent social capital thesis—not only is social capital associated with greater economic insecurity, there is no evidence that it improves social welfare effectiveness. However, greater spending on some social programs can mitigate the adverse impact of social capital on economic security.

Serving the Unemployed: Do More Generous Social Insurance Programs Provide Better Quality Service?

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Compton Mallory E.
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Unemployment Insurance ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
State Level ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
The Unemployed

The role and capacity of public administration in contributing to economic security is an increasingly important question. More generous social welfare programs may have greater capacity to insure households against risk, but those programs can effectively provide economic security only to the extent that public organizations deliver benefits promptly and properly to families in need. Administrative performance matters. Given that governments with more generous social programs have demonstrated social welfare to be a priority, are those governments also more likely to put effort towards better administration of welfare programs? This question is addressed here using administrative performance data from U.S. state-level unemployment insurance programs, from 2002-2015. Evidence points to a positive association between generosity and administrative quality: more generous states make fewer administrative errors and that relationship is driven by their making fewer underpayments. If unemployment insurance replacement rates reflect an institutionalized commitment to more generously protecting individuals from economic insecurity, that commitment is also evident in the types of administrative errors agents make.

It could happen to you: how perceptions of personal risk shape support for social welfare policy in the American States

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-552
Author(s):  
Kerri Milita ◽  
Jaclyn Bunch ◽  
Sara Yeganeh
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Risk Exposure ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
American States ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIs public support for social welfare programs’ contingent on an individual’s exposure to risk? Prior work has examined whether tough economic times lead people to “reach out” (i.e. become more accepting of government expansion of social welfare programs) or “pull back” (i.e. become less supportive of welfare). However, these studies do not account for the conditional relationship between an individual’s exposure to risk and his or her risk orientation. Using new survey data, we find that an individual’s risk orientation moderates the relationship between risk exposure and public support for welfare spending. When individuals perceive exposure to economic risk, those who are risk averse are highly supportive of welfare expansion; those who are risk acceptant become less supportive. Broadly, these findings suggest that public support for welfare spending is contingent on whether an individual perceives exposure to risk and, if so, the individual’s propensity to tolerate that risk.

Remittances and the Politics of Austerity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Germano
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Welfare Function ◽  
Global Markets ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Instability ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Poor Families ◽  
International Migrants

Remittances sent by international migrants have become an increasingly important source of social welfare in the developing world. This chapter explores what remittances are, why migrants send them, and how poor families use them. I argue in this chapter that remittances are more than just gifts from one relative to another. They play a larger social welfare role that complements funds that governments spend on social welfare programs. This social welfare function has become particularly important in recent decades as developing countries have prioritized austerity and integrated into volatile global markets. I argue that by filling a welfare gap in an age of austerity, remittances help to reduce the suffering and anger that so often trigger political and social instability during times of economic crisis.

Trust in a Polarized Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Downward Spiral

Americans today don’t trust each other and their institutions as much as they used to. The collapse of social and political trust arguably has fueled our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. But is the decline in trust inevitable? Are we caught in a downward spiral that must end in war-like politics, institutional decay, and possibly even civil war? This book argues that American political and economic institutions are capable of creating and maintaining trust, even through polarized times. Combining philosophical arguments and empirical data, the author shows that liberal democracy, markets, and social welfare programs all play a vital role in producing social and political trust. Even more, these institutions can promote trust justly, by recognizing and respecting our basic human rights.

The Rise of Block-Granting as a Tool of Conservative Statecraft

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-247
Author(s):  
Ryan LaRochelle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Block Grant ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Block Grants ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThis article sheds new light on how conservatism has affected American state development by tracing the history of how block-granting transformed from a bipartisan tool to solve problems of public administration in the 1940s into a mechanism to roll back and decentralize the welfare state that had reached its zenith in the 1960s. By the early 1980s, conservative policymakers had coopted the previously bipartisan tool in their efforts to chip away at the increasingly centralized social welfare system that emerged out of the Great Society. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan successfully converted numerous categorical grants into a series of block grants, slashing funding for several social safety net programs. Block-granting allows conservative opponents of the postwar welfare state to gradually erode funding and grant more authority to state governments, thus using federalism as a more palatable political weapon to reduce social welfare spending than the full dismantlement of social programs. However, despite a flurry of successes in the early 1980s, block-granting has not proven as successful as conservatives might have hoped, and recent efforts to convert programs such as Medicaid and parts of the Affordable Care Act into block grants have failed. The failure of recent failed block grant efforts highlights the resilience of liberal reforms, even in the face of sustained conservative opposition. However, conservatives still draw upon the tool today in their efforts to erode and retrench social welfare programs. Block-granting has thus transformed from a bipartisan tool to improve bureaucratic effectiveness into a perennial weapon in conservatives’ war on the welfare state.

scholarly journals Capitalising on faith? An intergenerational study of social and religious capital among Baby Boomers and Millennials in Britain

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 862-880
Author(s):  
Stuart Fox ◽  
Esther Muddiman ◽  
Jennifer Hampton ◽  
Ekaterina Kolpinskaya ◽  
Ceryn Evans
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Baby Boomers ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Religious Capital ◽  
Intergenerational Study ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Active Generation ◽  
Effective Source

Intergenerational inequalities in economic security, health and political participation are frequently associated with inequalities in access to social capital. Millennials (those born after 1982) are often regarded as the least civically active generation, suggesting that they have less access to social capital, compared to other generations. Numerous studies have linked the decline of religion with falling social capital, as younger generations are deprived of a valuable source of social interaction; others, however, have claimed the link between the two is spurious because Millennials have developed different ways of interacting with social institutions and each other. Despite various studies exploring links between forms of religious and social capital, the role of religious decline in contributing to the intergenerational inequalities of today remains unclear. This study examines how religious capital is related to social capital for Baby Boomers and Millennials in the UK. Our analysis shows that while lower levels of religious capital are contributing to lower levels of social capital among Millennials, religious activity is also a more effective source of social capital for Millennials than their elders. We discuss possible interpretations of our data, including exploring whether greater religious engagement among Millennials may protect against intergenerational inequality and conflict.

The Impact of Social Welfare Programs

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cherry
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Work Incentives ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Impact ◽  
And Training

This article briefly reviews the conservative, liberal and radical approaches to social welfare programs, and compares these with empirical evidence from the USA. Conservatives stress that welfare programs reduce work incentives and undermine individual initiatives. Liberals suggest that cuts in welfare have created increased hardship without changing significantly the incentives to work. The Massachusetts Employment and Training Program is analyzed from both perspectives. The Program does not reduce benefits but instead increases work incentives. The results of this Program are skeptically reviewed by radicals as well as some liberals.

scholarly journals The Current Unilateralist Counterattack on Unionism and Collective Bargaining

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solomon Barkin
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Wage Policy ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
New Policies

The swing to political conservatism in the eighties encouraged anti-union groups to weaken and dismantle both the unionmovement and the labor parties. The author, in his analysis, illustrates the developments and contents of the new policies in the field of industrial relations noting that another equally dramatic account may be set forth in the fields of wage policy and social welfare programs.

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