Esping-Andersen constructed the welfare regime typology acknowledging the ideational importance and power of the three dominant political movements of the long 20 th century in Western Europe and North America: Social Democracy, Christian Democracy and Liberalism.
The ideal Social-Democratic welfare state is based on the principle of universalism granting access to benefits and services based on citizenship. Such a welfare state is said to provide a relatively high degree of autonomy, limiting the reliance of family and market. Christian-democratic welfare states are based on the principle of subsidiarity and the dominance of social insurance schemes, offering a medium level of decommodification and a high degree of social stratification.
On the other hand, the liberal regime is based on the notion of market dominance and private provision; ideally, the state only interferes to ameliorate poverty and provide for basic needs, largely on a means-tested basis.
The American welfare state was designed to address market shortcomings and do what private enterprises cannot or will not do. Unlike welfare states built on social democracy foundations it was not designed to promote a redistribution of political power from capital to labor; nor was it designed to mediate class struggle.
Income redistribution, through programs such as the Earned income tax credit EITC , has been defended on the grounds that the market cannot provide goods and services universally, while interventions going beyond transfers are justified by the presence of imperfect information, imperfect competition, incomplete markets, externalities, and the presence of public goods. The welfare state, whether through charitable redistribution or regulation that favors smaller players, is motivated by reciprocal altruism.
Unlike in Europe, Christian democratic and social democratic theories have not played a major role in shaping welfare policy in the United States. Entitlement programs in the U. Between and , modern American liberalism dominated U. In , total U. Welfare reform has attempted many times to remove welfare altogether by promoting self-sufficiency, but has been unsuccessful in this regard thus far.
Welfare reform refers to improving how a nation helps those citizens in poverty. In the United States, the term was used to get Congress to enact the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which further reduced aid to the poor, to reduce government deficit spending without coining money. Social programs in the United States are welfare subsidies designed to aid the needs of the U.
This gave states no incentive to direct welfare funds to the neediest recipients or to encourage individuals to go off welfare benefits the state lost federal money when someone left the system. In , under the Bill Clinton administration, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which gave more control of the welfare system to the states though there are basic requirements the states need to meet with regards to welfare services.
Still, most states offer basic assistance, such as health care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing assistance. Each state must meet certain criteria to ensure recipients are being encouraged to work themselves out of welfare. It encourages states to require some sort of employment search in exchange for providing funds to individuals, and imposes a five-year lifetime limit on cash assistance. The bill restricts welfare from most legal immigrants and increased financial assistance for child care.
The late s were also considered an unusually strong economic time, and critics voiced their concern about what would happen in an economic downturn. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. The conference declared that preserving the family in the home was preferable to placing the poor in institutions, which were widely criticized as costly failures. Starting with Illinois in , the "mother's pension" movement sought to provide state aid for poor fatherless children who would remain in their own homes cared for by their mothers.
In effect, poor single mothers would be excused from working outside the home. Welfare reformers argued that the state pensions would also prevent juvenile delinquency since mothers would be able to supervise their children full-time. By , mother's pension programs were operating in all but two states. They varied greatly from state to state and even from county to county within a state. Administered in most cases by state juvenile courts, mother's pensions mainly benefitted families headed by white widows.
These programs excluded large numbers of divorced, deserted, and minority mothers and their children. Few private and government retirement pensions existed in the United States before the Great Depression.
The prevailing view was that individuals should save for their old age or be supported by their children. About 30 states provided some welfare aid to poor elderly persons without any source of income. Local officials generally decided who deserved old-age assistance in their community. The emphasis during the first two years of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" was to provide work relief for the millions of unemployed Americans.
Federal money flowed to the states to pay for public works projects, which employed the jobless. Some federal aid also directly assisted needy victims of the Depression. The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called "unemployables" widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled.
But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were declining steeply. In addition to old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, the Social Security Act established a national welfare system. The federal government guaranteed one-third of the total amount spent by states for assistance to needy and dependent children under age 16 but not their mothers. Additional federal welfare aid was provided to destitute old people, the needy blind, and crippled children.
Although financed partly by federal tax money, the states could still set their own eligibility requirements and benefit levels. This part of the law was pushed by Southern states so they could control the coverage made available to their African-American population.
This is how welfare began as a federal government responsibility. Roosevelt and the members of Congress who wrote the welfare provisions into the Social Security Act thought that the need for federal aid to dependent children and poor old people would gradually wither away as employment improved and those over 65 began to collect Social Security pensions.
But many Americans, such as farm laborers and domestic servants, were never included in the Social Security old-age retirement program. Also, since , increasing divorce and father desertion rates have dramatically multiplied the number of poor single mothers with dependent children.
Since the Great Depression, the national welfare system expanded both in coverage and federal regulations. From its inception, the system drew critics. Some complained that the system did not do enough to get people to work. Believing family allowance was not widely supported among its constituency, the Labour government of was unenthusiastic about the issue.
However, in , pressure groups especially the Child Poverty Action Group forced it to address family allowance. Cabinet debated the respective merits of an increase in the existing family allowance, or a new means-tested family supplement that was supported by the Chancellor, James Callaghan.
It was designed to replace further increases in family allowance with a means-tested supplement for the poorest families, and was in some ways similar to the scheme devised by Callaghan under Labour. There was a low take-up rate of FIS, which proved unpopular, especially as it was accompanied by the withdrawal of subsidised milk for children. Back in power, Labour had originally intended to merge family allowances and child tax allowances in the new benefit called child benefit in the mid s, but under financial pressure decided to abandon these plans.
The bill replaced family allowance with a benefit for each child, which was paid to the mothers. The act was not implemented immediately because of the economic crisis of the mids. Eventually, child benefit was phased in from to In , there was a major social security review, announced by the Conservative government and leading to a Social Security Act in , with a new system being introduced in Many supporters of child benefit believed that it might be abolished, means-tested, or taxed.
In the event, as a result of campaigns by Save Child Benefit and others, child benefit was retained. Many proposals were put forward to restructure, reduce or radically change child benefit.
He restructured child benefit, to introduce a higher rate for the first or eldest eligible child. In July , the Labour government abolished one parent benefit the addition to child benefit for lone parents, originally introduced in They did this by incorporating one parent benefit into the main child benefit rates. It was abolished for new claimants and existing claims were frozen. Between April and April , the rate of child benefit for the first child increased by Under the Child Benefit Act , child benefit is now available for young people completing a course which they started before their nineteenth birthday up to age Those in specific unwaged training programmes are also eligible.
These reforms rectified long-standing anomalies. We will preserve child benefit, winter fuel payments and free TV licenses. They are valued by millions. I have received many proposals about this benefit. Some have suggested that we means-test it; others that we tax it. All these proposals involve issues of fairness.
The benefit is usually claimed by the mother.
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