A01=Christopher Howard
AARP
Author_Christopher Howard
Bankruptcy
Bureaucracy
Category=JKS
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Conflict of interest
Disability benefits
Disability insurance
Dissident
Divided government
Down payment
Earned income tax credit
Economic inequality
Employee Retirement Income Security Act
Employment
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Exit poll
Expense
Family income
Federal Housing Administration
FHA insured loan
Fraud
Hidden welfare state
Home mortgage interest deduction
Homelessness
Housing voucher
Income
Income in the United States
Inflation
Insurance
Jacob Hacker
Leave of absence
Limited government
Medicaid
National Taxpayers Union
New Democrats
Pension
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Personal exemption (United States)
Phase Out
Poverty
Poverty in the United States
Public Works Administration
Racism
Ralph Nader
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Regressive tax
Scarcity
Single parent
Slavery
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Social Security Act
Social Security Disability Insurance
State Children's Health Insurance Program
State formation
Tax
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Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
To the Contrary
Unemployment
Unemployment benefits
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
Veto
War on Poverty
War pension
Watergate scandal
Welfare
Welfare dependency
Welfare reform
Welfare state
Workers' compensation
Product details
- ISBN 9780691138336
- Weight: 404g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 10 Aug 2008
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Christopher Howard is the Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of "The Hidden Welfare State" (Princeton).
