Author: Margaret Weir Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 9780691028415 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 484
Book Description
Revised papers from the second and third of three conference held in Chicago throughout 1984-1985, and sponsored by the Project on the Federal Social Role. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Author: Nancy Kusmaul Publisher: ISBN: 9781793520715 Category : Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
Aging and Social Policy in the United States guides students through an exploration of social policies and policymaking that address the needs of older adults and their families. It situates the experiences of older adults in the context of their environment, examining social welfare policies that affect the rights and interests of older adults. The book begins with an introductory unit, providing a foundation for the book, defining key terms, describing how to analyze the impacts of a policy on a population, and examining the ways in which policy is positioned within societal assumptions. Utilizing the life course perspective, the middle three units of this book situate individual biological and psychological challenges of aging in the context of how they are addressed by individuals, families, and societies, identifying the strengths and challenges of existing and proposed social policies at each of these levels. The concluding unit provides comparative insights as to how aging issues are addressed in a sample of countries around the world. Aging and Social Policy in the United States provides undergraduate and graduate students with critical knowledge and perspectives on the complexities of addressing the needs of an aging population.
Author: Theda Skocpol Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674043723 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 737
Book Description
It is a commonplace that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. During the late nineteenth century, competitive party politics in American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and their families. But such hopes went against the logic of political reform in the Progressive Era. Generous social spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead, the nation nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as the federal government and more than forty states enacted social spending, labor regulations, and health education programs to assist American mothers and children. Remarkably, as Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned from electoral politics, they turned their energies to creating huge, nation-spanning federations of local women's clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules, political parties, and earlier public policies combined to determine both the opportunities and the limits within which social policies were devised and changed by reformers and politically active social groups over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining afresh the institutional, cultural, and organizational forces that have shaped U.S. social policies in the past, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers challenges us to think in new ways about what might be possible in the American future.
Author: National Research Council Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309264146 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 421
Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
Author: James W. Russell Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers ISBN: 1442206594 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
The second edition of Double Standard analyzes how and why social policy and welfare states evolved differently in Western Europe and the United States. Exploring common social problems—from poverty to family support to ethnic and racial conflict—the book shows the disparate consequences to these different approaches. The new edition includes the latest available statistical information, an analysis of the 2010 health care reform in the United States, and a discussion comparing the social consequences of the recent recession in the U.S. and Europe.
Author: Edward D. Berkowitz Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022669223X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
American social welfare policy has produced a health system with skyrocketing costs, a disability insurance program that consigns many otherwise productive people to lives of inactivity, and a welfare program that attracts wide criticism. Making Social Welfare Policy in America explains how this happened by examining the historical development of three key programs—Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Edward D. Berkowitz traces the developments that led to each program’s creation. Policy makers often find it difficult to dislodge a program’s administrative structure, even as political, economic, and cultural circumstances change. Faced with this situation, they therefore solve contemporary problems with outdated programs and must improvise politically acceptable solutions. The results vary according to the political popularity of the program and the changes in the conventional wisdom. Some programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, remain in place over time. Policy makers have added new parts to Medicare to reflect modern developments. Congress has abolished Aid to Families of Dependent Children and replaced with a new program intended to encourage work among adult welfare recipients raising young children. Written in an accessible style and using a minimum of academic jargon, this book illuminates how three of our most important social welfare programs have come into existence and how they have fared over time.
Author: Daniel Beland Publisher: Polity ISBN: 0745645844 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
From housing, pensions and family benefits, to health care, unemployment insurance and social assistance, the welfare state is a key aspect of our lives. This book provides a concise political and sociological introduction to social policy, helping readers to grasp the nature of social programs and the political struggles surrounding them.
Author: James Midgley Publisher: SAGE ISBN: 9780761915614 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 570
Book Description
Comprises 33 papers grouped under five themes: The Nature of social policy; The History of social policy; Social policy and the social services; The Political economy of social policy; and International and future perspectives on social policy.
Author: Nathan Glazer Publisher: ISBN: 9780674534445 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
Many social policies of the 1960s and 1970s, designed to overcome poverty and provide a decent standard of living for all Americans, ran into trouble in the 1980s with politicians, with social scientists, and with the American people. Here Nathan Glazer looks back at what went wrong, arguing that our social policies, although targeted effectively on some problems, ignored others that are equally important. Glazer's knowledge and judgment, distilled in this book, will be a source of advice and wisdom for citizens and policymakers alike.
Author: Margaret Weir
Author: Nancy Kusmaul
Author: Theda Skocpol
Author: National Research Council
Author: James W. Russell
Author: Edward D. Berkowitz
Author: Jacob S. Hacker
Author: Daniel Beland
Author: James Midgley
Author: Nathan Glazer