The authors convincingly rebuff the 20-year assault on the United States welfare state, launched by the left and the right. They argue that America's "insurance-opportunity"-oriented welfare is compatible with two basic U.S. ideological principles: rugged individualism and mutual support. The authors systematically dismantle arguments, used in the assault, that U.S. welfare is economically undesirable, unaffordable, and ungovernable; and successfully defend America's welfare achievements while correcting and dispelling popular misconceptions and myths about it. The authors reject comprehensive reform but promote workable incremental reforms, compatible with America's fundamental ideological beliefs, to specific welfare programs. ISBN 0-465-05969-4: $22.95.

The Welfare State Nobody Knows challenges a number of myths and half-truths about U.S. social policy. The American welfare state is supposed to be a pale imitation of "true" welfare states in Europe and Canada. Christopher Howard argues that the American welfare state is in fact larger, more popular, and more dynamic than commonly believed. Nevertheless, poverty and inequality remain high, and this book helps explain why so much effort accomplishes so little. One important reason is that the United States is adept at creating social programs that benefit the middle and upper-middle classes, but less successful in creating programs for those who need the most help. This book is unusually broad in scope, analyzing the politics of social programs that are well known (such as Social Security and welfare) and less well known but still important (such as workers' compensation, home mortgage interest deduction, and the Americans with Disabilities Act). Although it emphasizes developments in recent decades, the book ranges across the entire twentieth century to identify patterns of policymaking. Methodologically, it weaves together quantitative and qualitative approaches in order to answer fundamental questions about the politics of U.S. social policy. Ambitious and timely, The Welfare State Nobody Knows asks us to rethink the influence of political parties, interest groups, public opinion, federalism, policy design, and race on the American welfare state.

"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

Publisher Description

'. . . the book makes clear that there is a consensus on the need for and desire for change'-PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

This edition reveals the results of a survey of attitudes of both the public and members of the U.S. House of Representatives about Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Unemployment Compensation.