Organized Labor and Old Age Pensions

1987 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Anglim ◽  
Brian Gratton
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
New Public ◽  
National Organizations ◽  
Old Age Pensions ◽  
American Labor ◽  
The Welfare State

Organized labor in the United States strongly supported pre-New Deal proposals for state pensions for the elderly. The idea that American labor, unlike its European counterparts, did not contribute to the rise of the welfare state is based on evidence from national organizations and their leaders. Review of the activities of the highly political state federations, and of the campaign for old age pensions in Massachusetts, indicates that labor, rather than middle-class reformers, was responsible for the promotion of new public welfare programs.

Robert W. Cherny, William Issel, and Kieran Walash Taylor, eds.,American Labor and the Cold War: Grassroots Politics and Post War Political Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004. 320 pp. Paper $23.95

2005 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 177-181
Author(s):  
William Mello
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
American Labor

Would the existing powerlessness of American unions be much different had organized labor not been the focus of cold-war repression in the late 1940s and 1950s? How did workers experience the anticommunist upsurge and reshape their political alliances in light of what some have called America's darkest political hour? American Labor and the Cold War is a collection of smart and challenging essays that examine the impact of cold war politics on organized labor and the labor-left. The authors explore the historical impact of the cold war and the constraints placed on working class political power in the United States immediately following the Second World War. They argue that the cold war on labor reflected a process that was driven by state-organized repressive measures that were sustained by regional political-cultural traditions and in some cases high levels of working-class conservatism. The essays highlight the efforts of conservative labor leaders to take control of left-led unions, purging Communist Party (CP) activists and their allies and the ways in which communists sought to resist the radical right-wing movement in their unions and surrounding communities.

Government Programs Can Reduce Poverty

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-123
Author(s):  
Mark Robert Rank ◽  
Lawrence M. Eppard ◽  
Heather E. Bullock
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Transfer Rates ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The Social

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.

American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena By Herbert B. Asher, Eric S. Heberlig, Randall B. Ripley, and Karen Snyder. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. 207p. $69.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 630-630
Author(s):  
Glenn Perusek
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact ◽  
American Labor

For more than a generation, as the authors rightly point out, the impact of organized labor on electoral politics has been neglected in scholarly literature. Indeed, only a tiny minority of social scientists explicitly focuses on organized labor in the United States. Although the impact of the social movements of the 1960s appeared to heighten awareness of the importance of class, race, and gender, class and its organized expression, the union movement, has received less attention, while studies of race and gender have flourished.

Organized Labor and the Invention of Modern Liberalism in the United States

1987 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 317-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Orren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
American Strain ◽  
Comparative Treatment ◽  
American Labor Movement ◽  
American Labor

There is perhaps no political topic that has been given such relentlessly comparative treatment as the American labor movement. It is rare to read any comprehensive political or historical study of organized labor that is not cast, implicitly or explicitly, against the greater class consciousness of European counterparts. The explanations advanced for the uniqueness or the lack of vigor in the American strain—abundance of land, immigration, early suffrage, a revolutionary heritage of “republicanism”—constitute most of what exists in the way of theories about American labor politics.

Aging in the People's Republic of China

1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myrna Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
Personal Visit

The Chinese approach to old age is a blend of 4,000 years of recorded culture; a predominately agricultural past and present, and a thirty year old socialist government. Valuable insights are gained regarding aging in China through the description of Chinese elderly life in context with China's past and present. Pertinent questions are asked concerning the role of the elderly in China's future. Although lacking the references and methodology usually accompanying articles published in this journal, this paper is based on discussions with a number of Chinese living in the United States and Hong Kong, American experts on China, brief discussions with members of the Chinese Liaison Office (now the Chinese Embassy), an interview with Dr. Ma Hai-teh (George Hatem), a personal visit to China in the summer of 1978, and a review of literature on China, It offers an opportunity to become acquainted with the conditions of the elderly in another social and political system.

scholarly journals Regulating the Elderly: Old Age Pensions and the Formation of a Pension Bureaucracy in Ontario, 1929-1945

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Struthers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Old Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Pension Scheme ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
World War ◽  
Universal System ◽  
Old Age Pensions

Abstract This article examines the emergence of means-tested old age pensions in Ontario in the context of the Great Depression and World War II. Ontario's old age pension scheme, it argues, was launched in 1929 with weak political commitment, little bureaucratic-preparation, and an almost complete absence of administrative experience at the provincial and municipal level in assessing and responding to need on a mass scale. The article examines the complex interplay among federal, provincial, and local government authorities in the politics of pension administration throughout the 1929-1945 era, arguing that local control of pension decision-making in the early years of the Depression provided two divergent models of pension entitlement both as charity and as an earned social right. After 1933 governments at both the provincial and federal level centralized decision-making over pension administration in order to standardize and restrict pension entitlement, contain its rapidly rising costs, and enforce more efficiently the concept of parental maintenance upon children. World War II undermined the concept of pensions as charity by broadly expanding the boundaries of entitlement both for the elderly and their children. By 1945 means-tested pensions had few supporters within or outside of government, laying the basis for the emergence of a universal system of old age security in 1951.

From Benefits and Beneficiaries: The Historical Origins of Old-Age Pensions From a Political Regime Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402198976
Author(s):  
Aline Grünewald
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Pension Coverage ◽  
Old Age Pensions ◽  
Coverage Rates ◽  
Nondemocratic Regimes ◽  
Historical Origins

Global studies on the historical origins of old-age pensions from a political regime perspective are quite rare. Based on the novel PENLEG dataset this article shows that democratic and nondemocratic regimes had different policy priorities when designing old-age pensions for the first time. Whereas democracies had significantly higher legal pension coverage rates than nondemocratic regimes, the reverse pattern can be found for pension replacement rates. The study also shows that temporal effects and colonial legacy mattered. Longstanding democracies introduced much higher legal pension coverage rates than countries that had recently democratized. Additionally, the French colonial legacy spurred high legal pension coverage rates in African autocracies. These findings underline the importance of taking the multidimensionality of welfare programs into account when analyzing political regime differences. Moreover, due attention must be paid to the historical context when theorizing about welfare policies from a political regime perspective.

Austerity and Aging in the United States: 1980 and beyond

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carroll L. Estes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Old Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Block Grants ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
Policy Solutions

This paper presents a critical examination of the past and future direction of social policies for the aged in the United States. The definitions of the social problem of old age and of the appropriate policy solutions for this problem have reflected the ups and downs of the U.S. economy and the shifting bases of political power during the past thirty years. In the 1980s, three dominant definitions of reality are shaping public policy for the elderly: (a) the perception of fiscal crisis and the necessity for reduced federal expenditures; (b) the perception that national policies should give way to decentralization and block grants; and (c) the perception of old age as an individual problem. It is argued that old age policy in the United States reflects a two-class system of welfare in which benefits are distributed on the basis of legitimacy rather than on the basis of need.

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