Productivity and Accountability: Weeding out the Target Population of Social Welfare Programs

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Latimore
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs

Social Welfare Attitudes and Immigrants as a Target Population: Experimental Evidence

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jake Haselswerdt
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Observational Research ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Geographic Context ◽  
Welfare Attitudes

What makes some Americans assume that social welfare programs will benefit immigrants rather than native-born Americans? How do these assumptions shape their attitudes about policy? Recent observational research has shown that immigration attitudes and social welfare attitudes are strongly correlated, but we lack evidence of exactly how this relationship works. In this pre-registered survey experiment, I study respondents’ assumptions about beneficiaries of a generic social welfare policy, and test the effects of different “threat” primes on the assumption that the policy benefits immigrants rather than native-born Americans. I find that a prime constructing immigrants as a fiscal threat increases the likelihood that a respondent will make this assumption, while a prime emphasizing cultural or demographic threat has no significant effect. These effects vary by geographic context, but not by relevant attitudes. Attitudes about immigration become an important predictor of policy approval when this assumption is triggered.

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.

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 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.

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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