The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy

by Christopher Howard

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.

Genres: Politics

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The United States is supposed to be a semi-welfare state, an incomplete welfare state, a welfare state laggard--in short, an underachiever. In many ways, this label is unfair. The American welfare state is larger and more popular than commonly believed. Although it lacks strong social insurance programs for people during their working years, it does subsidize their health insurance and home mortgages and it does regulate their wages and benefits. But, if the fundamental goals of a welfare state are security and equality, as many scholars contend, then the United States does indeed fall short. Poverty and inequality are unusually high in the United States, and one of the main reasons why this is the. case is that social policies do relatively little mitigate the problems that market forces generate."

This book is important for the information and history it offers on U.S. social policy and I definitely appreciate the sort of exploration that the author intended. I liked the last chapter and how it outlined U.S. inequality and poverty compared to other wealthy nations and how this is a policy choice; the book's discussion of how public policy exacerbates inequality and mainly gives more money to those who already have it is why I read this book. He also even spends some time talking about how U.S. federalism is not good for creating and implementing any of these kinds of policies, which I of course appreciated.

However, despite these arguments made at the end of the book and the beliefs that the author obviously has, throughout most of the book I found the author really annoying and frustrating. As if he was your average economist (like the guys who wrote Freakonomics), he is really interested in being contrarian at every opportunity and loves giving weight to random data points and polling results, while missing explanations that I thought were really obvious. He also denies the rightward turn of both major U.S. political parties in the last quarter of the twentieth century, rationalizes certain political strategies (even if he claims to not support them in his conclusion) and the motivations of elected officials, and in turn humanizes some pretty bad people.

Although he does acknowledge the inequities and some of the other negatives to the American system, he outlines the programs and the histories of them in a way that makes America seem just 'different' instead of worse. At the very end, he even acts as if there isn't a great way to determine how much poverty is 'too much.' And, while he briefly discusses the American trend to focus on middle class vs. upper class in political struggles instead of working class interests, I thought he was reductive when considering if the working class would even want more redistributive policy. In the end, it seemed like his brief dive into the inequality that American public policy gives birth to was just a band-aid to cover up his overall argument that these policies and their outcomes are supported by public opinion and that although our welfare state is structured differently than our peer countries, it's more similar than anyone would like to believe! His suggestions at the end don't make sense to me within the context of the book, where he 'debunks' every distinction and ranking of different policies.

[Jim Gallen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Welfare State Nobody Knows” provides a behind the scenes look at the vast embrace of the American welfare network. Author Christopher Howard lays out an extensive study of the breadth and nature of the U. S. system and how it compares to those of other countries. He makes the point that the American system is larger and more strongly supported than is commonly believed. He explains how it includes, not only aid to the poor, but many benefits to the middle class and even the wealthy. Medicare, home mortgage and health insurance deductions, FHA and VA insured and guaranteed mortgages, Social Security, workers’ compensation and tort law are just a few of the examples of the many facets of social support provided and supported by the American people. In many cases the American system differs more in form than in amount from foreign systems. In the end he thinks that it among the larger but less effective welfare schemes in the world. Throughout this work he explores the political support for the varying programs across population groups.

I found “The Welfare State Nobody Knows” to be an eye-opening expose of a scheme that we take for granted. Unless our attention is drawn to them, some portions are not recognized as welfare. At times the statistical analysis gets a bit boring for the general reader but the book is short enough that you maintain interest while skimming over those details. I opened it because one chapter was cited in papers for a seminar in which I am to participate. I read it through and I am glad that I did. Whatever your enthusiasm for welfare, this book puts the issue into a different perspective and helps the reader appreciate the big picture. For that it is a worthwhile read.

[Austin Barselau · Rating 3 out of 5]

A primer on the history and development of social welfare in the U.S.; a bit outdated and could use an update