Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America

Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America
Author: John M. Herrick
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2005
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0761925848

This encyclopedia provides readers with basic information about the history of social welfare in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The intent of the encyclopedia is to provide readers with information about how these three nations have dealt with social welfare issues, some similar across borders, others unique, as well as to describe important events, developments, and the lives and work of some key contributors to social welfare developments.

Making Social Welfare Policy in America

Making Social Welfare Policy in America
Author: Edward D. Berkowitz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2020-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022669223X

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 Faced with this situation, they therefore solve contemporary problems with outdated programs and must improvise politically acceptable solutions. The results vary according to the political popularity of the program and the changes in the conventional wisdom. Some programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, remain in place over time. Policy makers have added new parts to Medicare to reflect modern developments. Congress has abolished Aid to Families of Dependent Children and replaced with a new program intended to encourage work among adult welfare recipients raising young children. Written in an accessible style and using a minimum of academic jargon, this book illuminates how three of our most important social welfare programs have come into existence and how they have fared over time.

U.S. Health in International Perspective

U.S. Health in International Perspective
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2013-04-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309264146

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

The Divided Welfare State

The Divided Welfare State
Author: Jacob S. Hacker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2002-09-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521013284

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Global social work

Global social work
Author: Carolyn Noble,
Publisher: Sydney University Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2014-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1743324049

Global social work: crossing borders, blurring boundaries is a collection of ideas, debates and reflections on key issues concerning social work as a global profession, such as its theory, its curricula, its practice, its professional identity; its concern with human rights and social activism, and its future directions. Apart from emphasising the complexities of working and talking about social work across borders and cultures, the volume focuses on the curricula of social work programs from as many regions as possible to showcase what is being taught in various cultural, sociopolitical and regional contexts. Exploring the similarities and differences in social work education across many countries of the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Pacific, the book provides a reference point for moving the current social work discourse towards understanding the local and global context in its broader significance.

Support for the American Welfare State

Support for the American Welfare State
Author: Fay Lomax Cook
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1992
Genre: Public opinion
ISBN: 0231076193

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.

The Black Power Movement and American Social Work

The Black Power Movement and American Social Work
Author: Joyce M. Bell
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014-06-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231538014

The Black Power movement has often been portrayed in history and popular culture as the quintessential "bad boy" of modern black movement-making in America. Yet this impression misses the full extent of Black Power's contributions to U.S. society, especially in regard to black professionals in social work. Relying on extensive archival research and oral history interviews, Joyce M. Bell follows two groups of black social workers in the 1960s and 1970s as they mobilized Black Power ideas, strategies, and tactics to change their national professional associations. Comparing black dissenters within the National Federation of Settlements (NFS), who fought for concessions from within their organization, and those within the National Conference on Social Welfare (NCSW), who ultimately adopted a separatist strategy, she shows how the Black Power influence was central to the creation and rise of black professional associations. She also provides a nuanced approach to studying race-based movements and offers a framework for understanding the role of social movements in shaping the non-state organizations of civil society.

Why Americans Hate Welfare

Why Americans Hate Welfare
Author: Martin Gilens
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2009-05-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226293661

Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor. "With one out of five children currently living in poverty and more than 100,000 families with children now homeless, Gilens's book is must reading if you want to understand how the mainstream media have helped justify, and even produce, this state of affairs." —Susan Douglas, The Progressive "Gilens's well-written and logically developed argument deserves to be taken seriously." —Choice "A provocative analysis of American attitudes towards 'welfare.'. . . [Gilens] shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs." -Library Journal

Welfare and Social Protection in Contemporary Latin America

Welfare and Social Protection in Contemporary Latin America
Author: Gibrán Cruz-Martínez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0429895666

Social protection serves as an important development tool, helping to alleviate deprivation, reduce social risks, raise household income and develop human capital. This book brings together an interdisciplinary team of international experts to analyse social protection systems and welfare regimes across contemporary Latin America. The book starts with a section tracking the expansion of social assistance and social insurance in Latin America through the state-led development era, the neoliberal era and the pink-tide. The second section explores the role played by local and external actors modelling social policy in the region. The third and final section addresses a variety of contemporary debates and challenges around social protection and welfare in the region, such as gender roles and the empowerment of CCT beneficiaries, and welfare provision for rural outsiders. The book touches on key topics such as conditional cash transfer programmes, trade union inclusionary strategies, transnational social policy, state-led versus market-led welfare provision, explanatory factors in the emerging dualism of social protection institutions, social citizenship rights as a consequence of changing social policy architecture and different poverty reduction strategies. This interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to economists, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and historians working on social protection in Latin America, or interested in welfare systems in the global south.

Social Welfare in Global Context

Social Welfare in Global Context
Author: James Midgley
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1997-03-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780761907886

James Midgley provides a broad overview of social welfare, outlining key institutions, terminology, historical research, and approaches. He also details reasons for the existence of international social welfare and the challenges that arise from it. The author includes an important section on applied international social welfare that addresses the concerns of practitioners--concerns that have been neglected in much of the literature in the field. An entire section of the book is devoted to issues of social work practice, social developments, the activities of international agencies, and their collaborative efforts. While practical application is an important focus of the book, several chapters deal with key theoretical debates in the field. The author also includes descriptive chapters that provide comprehensive accounts of world social conditions and social welfare institutions.