You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
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 wi...
In both the literal and metaphorical senses, it seemed as if 1970s America was running out of gas. The decade not only witnessed long lines at gas stations but a citizenry that had grown weary and disillusioned. High unemployment, runaway inflation, and the energy crisis, caused in part by U.S. dependence on Arab oil, characterized an increasingly bleak economic situation. As Edward D. Berkowitz demonstrates, the end of the postwar economic boom, Watergate, and defeat in Vietnam led to an unraveling of the national consensus. During the decade, ideas about the United States, how it should be governed, and how its economy should be managed changed dramatically. Berkowitz argues that the postw...
The Other Welfare offers the first comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), from its origins as part of President Nixon's daring social reform efforts to its pivotal role in the politics of the Clinton administration. Enacted into law in 1972, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) marked the culmination of liberal social and economic policies that began during the New Deal. The new program provided cash benefits to needy elderly, blind, and disabled individuals. Because of the complex character of SSI—marking both the high tide of the Great Society and the beginning of the retrenchment of the welfare state—it provides the perfect subject for assessing the development of ...
Mass Appeal describes the changing world of American popular culture from the first sound movies through the age of television. In short vignettes, the book reveals the career patterns of people who became big movie, TV, or radio stars. Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson symbolize the early stars of sound movies. Groucho Marx and Fred Astaire represent the movie stars of the 1930s, and Jack Benny stands in for the 1930s performers who achieved their success on radio. Katharine Hepburn, a stage and film star, illustrates the cultural trends of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Humphrey Bogart and Bob Hope serve as examples of performers who achieved great success during the Second World War. Walt Disney, Woody Allen, and Lucille Ball, among others, become the representative figures of the postwar world. Through these vignettes, the reader comes to understand the development of American mass media in the twentieth century.
"Useful for scholars and students both for its insights into the policy-making process and for its account of how American social policy arrived at the sorry state we find it in today." -- Contemporary Sociology
Combining history and an analysis of policy today, this book exposes the contradictions in America's disability policy and suggests means of remedying them. Based on careful archival research and interviews with policymakers, the book illustrates the dilemmas that public policies pose for the handicapped: the present system forces too many people with physical impairments into retirement, despite the availability of constructive alternatives.
He played that role so well that he prompted Senator Paul Douglas's wry comment that "an expert on Social Security is a person who knows Wilbur Cohen's telephone number.".
From simple reflexes to complex movements, all animal behavior is governed by a nervous system. But what kind of government is it—a dictatorship or a democracy? Ari Berkowitz explains the variety of structures and strategies that control behavior, while providing an overview of thought-provoking debates and cutting-edge research.
In a provocative assessment of American poverty and policy from 1950 to the present, Frank Strieker examines an era that has seen serious discussion about the causes of poverty and unemployment. Analyzing the War on Poverty, theories of the culture of poverty and the underclass, the effects of Reaganomics, and the 1996 welfare reform, Strieker dem-onstrates that most antipoverty approaches are futile without the presence (or creation) of good jobs. Strieker notes that since the 1970s, U.S. poverty levels have remained at or above 11 %, despite training programs and periods of economic growth. The creation of jobs has continued to lag behind the need for them. Strieker argues that a serious p...
Understanding wealth in the United States—who has it, how they acquired it, and how they preserve it—is crucial to addressing the economic and political challenges facing the nation. But until now we have had little reliable information. Edward Wolff, one of the world’s great experts on the economics of wealth, offers an authoritative account of patterns in the accumulation and distribution of wealth since 1900. A Century of Wealth in America demonstrates that the most remarkable change has been the growth of per capita household wealth, which climbed almost eightfold prior to the 2007 recession. But overlaid on this base rate are worrying trends. The share of personal wealth claimed b...