Will the Social Security system founder as millions of baby boomers enter their retirement years? Is the frightening vision of an impoverished old age a glimpse into the real future for Americans of the next generation? The authors of this book put debates about Social Security reform into historical perspective, consider various reform ideas, and elaborate a proposal to ensure that the system can continue to meet the claims of the retired and the disabled. Sylvester J. Schieber and John B. Shoven, leading experts on retirement issues, set forth a carefully considered plan to change the way we finance Social Security and thereby secure its future viability. Exploring the history of the Social Security system from its origins during the Depression to its current troubled prospects, Schieber and Shoven analyze the program's economic structure and introduce the remarkable personalities who influenced its evolution. The authors show how Social Security today differs from the program Franklin D. Roosevelt envisioned and how the shift to pay-as-you-go funding has led to the system's current problems. Seen in historical context, some reform approaches are revealed as a renewal of attempts to fund Social Security through means that have repeatedly failed. The authors argue for mandatory private retirement savings accounts for workers-a proposal that would lighten retirement security burdens for future generations, avoid tax increases, and preserve the system's progressivity. This book is essential reading not only for policymakers but for anyone else who wishes to understand what Social Security reform will mean for us as a nation and as individuals.

In nearly all States, adoption records are sealed and withheld from public inspection after an adoption is finalised. This book discusses state laws that provide for access to both nonidentifying and identifying information from an adoption record by adoptive parents and adult adopted persons, while still protecting the interests of all parties. Furthermore, the book discusses postadoption contact agreements, which are are arrangements that allow contact between a childs adoptive family and members of the childs birth family or other persons with whom the child has an established relationship, such as a foster parent, after the childs adoption has been finalized. These arrangements, sometimes referred to as cooperative adoption or open adoption agreements, can range from informal, mutual understandings between the birth and adoptive families to written, formal contracts.

The first study to explore the origins of welfare in the context of local politics, this book examines the first public welfare policy created specifically for mother-only families. Chicago initiated the largest mothers' pension program in the United States in 1911. Evolving alongside movements for industrial justice and women's suffrage, the mothers' pension movement hoped to provide "justice for mothers" and protection from life's insecurities. However, local politics and public finance derailed the policy, and most women were required to earn. Widows were more likely to receive pensions than deserted women and unwed mothers. And African-American mothers were routinely excluded because they were proven breadwinners yet did not compete with white men for jobs. Ultimately, the once-uniform commitment to protect motherhood faltered on the criteria of individual support, and wage-earning became a major component of the policy.
This revealing study shows how assumptions about women's roles have historically shaped public policy and sheds new light on the ongoing controversy of welfare reform.

The basic shape of American federal policy in housing as in many other areas, was determined during the New Deal, but not without conflict among movements and intellectuals advocating alternative directions. One of these was "modern housing" - a set of proposals for a radical rethinking of homes and neighbourhoods. Supporters of this approach hoped that a significant proportion of American homes could be provided by a broadly targeted, noncommercial housing sector, supported by the federal government. They urged comprehensively planned neighbourhoods with generous public spaces, a range of public services, and resident participation in design and administration. While modern housing ideas failed to define the long-term thrust of federal policy, they did influence a short-lived programme of the Public Works Administration, seen in the case studies of the Carl Mackley Houses of Philadelphia and Harlem River houses of New York. The author concludes with a chapter on the long-range impact of New Deal policy on American politics and the legacy of the modern housing initiative for contemporary public policy debates.

Elites have a disproportionate impact on development outcomes. While a country's endowments constitute the deep determinates of growth, the trajectory they follow is shaped by the actions of elites. But what factors affect whether elites use their influence for individual gain or national welfare? To what extent do they see poverty as a problem? And are their actions today constrained by institutions and norms established in the past? This volume looks at case studies from South Africa to China to seek a better understanding of the dynamics behind how elites decide to engage with economic development. Approaches include economic modelling, social surveys, theoretical analysis, and program evaluation. These different methods explore the relationship between elites and development outcomes from five angles: the participation and reaction of elites to institutional creation and change, how economic changes affect elite formation and circulation, elite perceptions of national welfare, the extent to which state capacity is part of elite self-identity, and how elites interact with non-elites.

One of the central features of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant is promoting work and job preparation for parents (mostly single mothers) in families that receive cash assistance. The TANF block grant requires states to engage a certain percentage of work-eligible cash assistance recipients in specified work-related activities, such as job search assistance and training. Yet, data suggest that more TANF recipients could receive assistance that would help them gain employment and reduce their dependence. This book reviews some approaches that have been identified as holding promise for engaging TANF recipients in employment and increasing their earnings and examines ways in which selected states and localities have used them; and identifies factors that influence their use.

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, enacted in 1974, is a needs-based program that provides cash benefits designed to ensure a minimum income to aged, blind, or disabled persons with limited income and assets. The SSI program is a means-tested program that does not have work or contribution requirements, but restricts benefits to those who meet asset and resource limitations. In July 2012, the SSI program had over 8.2 million participants, who received just under $4.6 billion in benefits. In FY2011, the total net cost of the SSI program was $52.9 billion, including $49.0 billion in federal benefit payments. Funding for the SSI program is provided by Congress in the annual Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill. This book provides select analysis of current benefits of the program, with a focus on income/resource limits and accounts exempt from benefit determinations; and better management oversight needed for children's benefits.

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"

This is a unique and timely survey of the evolving priorities of the British welfare state since its inception in the late 1940s, with an emphasis on how current and future aims and features of welfare provision compare with the ambitions of its original architects. In this book, 15 commentators, including prominent academic experts in the field, and also members of think tanks, charities and campaigning organisations - with a foreword by the BBC's Huw Edwards, explore themes such as health, education, housing, gender, disability and ethnic diversity. The result of this study is a rich, critical and thought-provoking exploration of the legacy and prospects of the welfare state - worth reading by anyone with an interest in debates on how a modern society should meet the needs of its citizens.

"Most of us are unaware of child neglect even when we are witnessing it. . . . Neglect is a matter of things undone, of inaction compounded by indifference. Since it goes on at home, it is a very private sin. . . . It is little wonder that most of the public is unaware of poor child caring. Its ignorance is even greater as to how widespread the problem is. But this is not a blissful ignorance. The public may not want to attend to child neglect, but it lives with the distortions of human personality that are left in its wake."--from chapter 1 of "Damaged Parents
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"Norman Polansky and his colleagues have produced a truly remarkable book. . . . One of the consequences of [the] relative invisibility of child neglect is that we also know less about it. But this book will help to correct that for it contains reports of findings from two systematic efforts to define, measure, classify, and understand child neglect."--Thomas M. Young, "Social Service Review"

The Social Security program pays benefits to retired and disabled workers and their family members, and to family members of deceased workers. The Social Security program is financed primarily through payroll taxes that are deposited in the U.S. Treasury and credited to the Social Security trust fund. Any revenues credited to the trust fund in excess of program costs (benefit payments and administrative expenses) are invested in special U.S. government obligations (debt instruments of the U.S. government). This book examines the basics of how the Social Security program is funded and how the Social Security trust fund works.

Congress continues to register concern about the rapid rise in Medicare spending and the ability of existing funding mechanisms to support the program over the long-term. A combination of factors has contributed to the rapid increase in Medicare costs. These include increases in overall medical costs, advances in health care delivery and medical technology, the ageing of the population, and longer life spans. The issues confronting the program are not new; nor are the possible solutions likely to get any easier. For a number of years, various options have been suggested; however, legislative changes have focused on short-term issues. There is no consensus on the long-term approach that should be taken. This book provides an overview of Medicare. It begins with a brief program history, and then outlines the key features of Parts A and B, also known as "Original Medicare". That is followed by overviews of Part C and Part D, a discussion of program financing, and a brief discussion of future program directions. It will be updated to reflect any legislative changes.

Get the benefits you've earned Social Security For Dummies is the one guide you need to navigate the often-complex world of Social Security retirement benefits. This updated edition offers clear guidance on when to claim benefits, how much you can expect to receive, where to find Social Security calculators, and so much more. Since its inception in the 1930s, workers across the United States have set aside a portion of their wages to fund the Social Security Administration. For many, Social Security forms the foundation for their retirement funds. Social Security For Dummies provides you with all the information you need to take charge of your retirement, maximize your financial well-being, and successfully navigate the U.S. Social Security Administration. You'll get up-to-date information to: Make your way around the Social Security website Know your Social Security options--including retirement, survivor, spousal, and disability benefits Find resources when you're stumped Get answers to common questions Retirement is meant to be enjoyed, and Social Security For Dummies makes it easier.

In the past decades the role of the State has undergone major alterations regarding supply of goods and services in general, particularly housing supply. There is a clear trend towards less direct intervention of the public agents in the supply process, encouraging participation of non-public agents, such as the private sector, NGO's (non-governmental organisations, with a volunteer character), and communities that receive goods and services -- in this case, housing. This is certainly a global trend encompassing both industrially advanced and developing countries. The mechanism of supplying housing or other goods and services consists of several elements, such as planning, financing, management, production, monitoring and supervision. The general supply pattern is defined by how these elements are distributed among public and non-public agents. The following questions are essential in this context: how are these elements distributed? What is the appropriate relation for a certain context? This book approaches these questions by means of a comparative analyses of different modes of housing provision emphasising the relations between public and non-public agents. To this end it uses case studies in Sao Paulo, Brazil where the fieldwork for the research was conducted. Nevertheless, the findings of the book have much wider implications for housing policy formulation and market development in developing countries as a whole.

Low-income families with housing problems are found in every section of the United States. They are located in large cities like Los Angeles and New York, but also in small towns and rural areas, in colonias on the border with Mexico, and on American Indian tribal areas of Arizona, New Mexico, and elsewhere. Long-term demographic and economic trends point to an increase in the number of low-income people with housing difficulties. Recent changes in welfare programs could accentuate these problems. This book presents an overview of housing problems currently facing low-income families and individuals and trends that may accentuate or mitigate these problems. For one thing, rising rents in private rental housing associated with a robust economy are resulting in a dwindling supply of decent and affordable housing available to low-income households. Contents: Preface; Housing Problems, Current and Emerging; Housing Construction and Rehabilitation Programs for Low-income Households; Using the Existing Inventory of Housing; Housing for Special Populations; Community Development Block Grants and Other Programs; Index.

Sure to raise the hackles of many across the nation is any mention of welfare and federal entitlement programs. All agree that no one should be on welfare, but the question is what to do about those who really need the income provided by the federal government. In 1996, welfare reform legislation enacted the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which is a block grant provided to the state with a chief purpose of ending the dependence of needy families on government assistance. Among the principal groups impacted by the welfare reform legislation are female headed families with children. Recent analyses have revealed that single mothers are more likely to be working than in the past and that welfare receipt among poor families with women at the head has declined. Despite these trends, single mothers' net income has shown no increase, suggesting that full-time work may not be enough to eliminate poverty and welfare dependency among female families. This book reports on several current trends in the economic status of female headed families, providing an overview of federal programs and their effects along with several useful charts based on Census Bureau information. The combination of statistics and evaluation make for an important contribution to the study of initiatives to defeat poverty and income deficiencies in a significant part of the population.

This book provides a fresh and even-handed account of the newly modernized AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) - the 40-million member insurance giant and political lobby that continues to set the national agenda for Medicare and Social Security. Frederick R. Lynch addresses AARP's courtship of 78 million aging baby boomers and the possibility of harnessing what may be the largest ever senior voting bloc to defend threatened cutbacks to Social Security, Medicare, and under-funded pension systems. Based on years of research, interviews with key strategists, and analyses of hundreds documents, "One Nation under AARP" profiles a largely white generation, raised in the relatively tranquil 1950s and growing old in a twenty-first century nation buffeted by rapid economic, cultural, and demographic change. Lynch argues that an ideologically divided boomer generation must decide whether to resist entitlement reductions through its own political mobilization or, by default, to empower AARP as it tries to shed its 'greedy geezer' stereotype with an increasingly post-boomer agenda for multigenerational equity.

At the turn of the 21st Century, Asia pulled one billion people out of poverty in one generation, a meteoric rise suddenly stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. This volume examines the strengths of the Asian-Pacific response to the pandemic and weaknesses that the region must re-engineer to rebound. It reimagines social and economic pathways to revamp production modes and networks to rekindle sustainable growth. Home to two-thirds of the world's population, the Asia-Pacific Region already accounts for close to half of all global output. By 2050 - after a detour of two centuries and a few pandemics - Asia-Pacific can again become a centrifugal economic and social force. This volume sets out options for policymakers to consider as we head into a new Asia-Pacific Century, one where economic strength will be necessary but insufficient by itself, as inclusion, resilience and sustainability - once seen as moral choices - become imperatives for the planet's future.

The extraordinary early life in India and England of one of the world's leading public intellectuals Where is 'home'? For Amartya Sen, home has been many places - Dhaka in modern Bangladesh, the little university town of Santiniketan, where he was raised as much by his grandparents as by his parents, Calcutta where he first studied economics and was active in student movements, and Trinity College, Cambridge, to which he came aged 19. Sen brilliantly recreates the atmosphere in each of these. He remembers his river journeys between Dhaka and his parents' ancestral homes and wonderfully explores the rich history and culture of Bengal. In 1943 he witnessed the disastrous unfolding of the Bengal Famine, and the following year the inflaming of tensions between Hindus and Muslims. In the years before Independence, some of his family were imprisoned for their opposition to British rule. Central to Sen's formation was the intellectually liberating school in Santiniketan founded by Rabindranath Tagore (who gave him his name Amartya) and exciting conversations in the Coffee House on College Street in Calcutta. In Cambridge, he engaged with many of the leading economists and philosophers of the day, especially with the great Marxist thinker Piero Sraffa, who provided a direct connection not only to Wittgenstein, but to Antonio Gramsci and the anti-fascist battles in Italy in the 1920s. After years in Europe and America, the book ends when he returns to Delhi in 1963. Home in the World shows how Sen's experience shaped his ideas - about economics, philosophy, identity, community, famines, gender inequality, social choice and the power of discussion in public life. The joys of learning and the importance of friendship are powerfully conveyed. He invokes some of the great thinkers of the past and his own time - from Ashoka in the third century BC and Akbar in the sixteenth, to David Hume, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Maurice Dobb, Kenneth Arrow and Eric Hobsbawm. Above all, Sen emphasises the importance of enlarging our views as much as we can, of human sympathy and understanding across time and distance, and of being at home in the world.

Why was the UK so unprepared for the pandemic, suffering one of the highest death rates and worst economic contractions of the major world economies in 2020? Hilary Cooper and Simon Szreter reveal the deep roots of our vulnerability and set out a powerful manifesto for change post-Covid-19. They argue that our commitment to a flawed neoliberal model and the associated disinvestment in our social fabric left the UK dangerously exposed and unable to mount an effective response. This is not at all what made Britain great. The long history of the highly innovative universal welfare system established by Elizabeth I facilitated both the industrial revolution and, when revived after 1945, the postwar Golden Age of rising prosperity. Only by learning from that past can we create the fairer, nurturing and empowering society necessary to tackle the global challenges that lie ahead - climate change, biodiversity collapse and global inequality.

In the critically acclaimed La Fin de la Pauverte?, Romain D. Huret identifies a network of experts who were dedicated to the post-World War II battle against poverty in the United States. John Angell's translation of Huret's work brings to light for an English-speaking audience this critical set of intellectuals working in federal government, academic institutions, and think tanks. Their efforts to create a policy bureaucracy to support federal socio-economic action spanned from the last days of the New Deal to the late 1960s when President Richard M. Nixon implemented the Family Assistance Plan. Often toiling in obscurity, this cadre of experts waged their own war not only on poverty but on the American political establishment. Their policy recommendations, as Huret clearly shows, often militated against the unscientific prejudices and electoral calculations that ruled Washington D.C. politics. The Experts' War on Poverty highlights the metrics, research, and economic and social facts these social scientists employed in their work, and thereby reveals the unstable institutional foundation of successive executive efforts to grapple with gross social and economic disparities in the United States. Huret argues that this internal war, coming at a time of great disruption due to the Cold War, undermined and fractured the institutional system officially directed at ending poverty. The official War on Poverty, which arguably reached its peak under President Lyndon B. Johnson, was thus fomented and maintained by a group of experts determined to fight poverty in radical ways that outstripped both the operational capacity of the federal government and the political will of a succession of presidents.

In this elegant critique, Amartya Sen argues that a closer contact between welfare economics and modern ethical studies can substantively enrich and benefit both disciplines. He argues further that even predictive and descriptive economics can be helped by making more room for welfare economic considerations in the explanation of behavior, especially in production relations, which inevitably involve problems of cooperation as well as conflict. The concept of rationality of behaviour is thoroughly proved in this context, with particular attention paid to social interdependence and internal tensions within consequentialist reasoning. In developing his general theme, Sen also investigates some related matters; the misinterpretation of Adam Smith's views on the role of self-seeking; the plausibility of an objectivist approach that attaches importance to subjective evaluations; and the admissibility of incompleteness and of 'inconsistencies' in the form of overcompleteness in rational evaluation. Sen also explores the role and importance of freedom in assessing well-being as well as choice. Sen's contributions to economics and ethics have greatly strengthened the theoretical bases of both disciplines; this appraisal of the connections between the two subjects and their possible development will be welcomed for the clarity and depth it contributes to the debate. These essays are based on the Royer Lectures delivered at the University of California, Berkeley.

While colonial imposition of the Canadian legal order has undermined Indigenous law, creating gaps and sometimes distortions, Indigenous peoples have taken up the challenge of rebuilding their laws, governance, and economies. Indigenous conceptions of land and property are central to this project. Creating Indigenous Property identifies how contemporary Indigenous conceptions of property are rooted in and informed by their societally specific norms, meanings, and ethics. Through detailed analysis, the authors illustrate that unexamined and unresolved contradictions between the historic and the present have created powerful competing versions of Indigenous law, legal authorities, and practices that reverberate through Indigenous communities. They have identified the contradictions and conflicts within Indigenous communities about relationships to land and non-human life forms, about responsibilities to one another, about environmental decisions, and about wealth distribution. Creating Indigenous Property contributes to identifying the way that Indigenous discourses, processes, and institutions can empower the use of Indigenous law. The book explores different questions generated by these dynamics, including: Where is the public/private divide in Indigenous and Canadian law, and why should it matter? How do land and property shape local economies? Whose voices are heard in debates over property and why are certain voices missing? How does gender matter to the conceptualization of property and the Indigenous legal imagination? What is the role and promise of Indigenous law in negotiating new relationships between Indigenous peoples and Canada? In grappling with these questions, readers will join the authors in exploring the conditions under which Canadian and Indigenous legal orders can productively co-exist.

"This important work gives a voice to some of the 44 million Americans who are at the center of the debate over coverage for the uninsured in this country. While there is much discussion of how to address this crisis, these individuals tell us why we must solve this problem: the costs and consequences of living without health insurance are dire."--Karen Davis, Ph.D., President of the Commonwealth Fund"A vivid, indignant, and important book, and it does one thing better than any other before: "Uninsured makes the abandoned millions visible again. Read it. You will not see the people at a subway stop, behind a cash register, or in your government the same way again."--Atul Gawande, M.D., author of "Complications"The next time someone tells you the United States has 'the best health care system in the world, ' ask them to read this powerful, heartbreaking book. Never have the real stories of America's uninsured been told with such clarity and insight."--John E. McDonough, DPH, Health Care For All, Boston""Uninsured is both compassionate and insightful. Necessary reading for all policy makers and anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how our health care system must be reformed." --Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, "Our Bodies Ourselves

Drawing upon Foucauldian analyzes of governmentality, the authors contend that social housing must be understood according to a range of political rationalities that saturate current practice and policy. They critically address the practice of dividing social from private tenure; situating subjects such as the purpose and financing of social housing, the regulation of its providers and occupiers and its relationship to changing perceptions of private renting and owner-occupation, within the context of an argument that all housing tenures form part of an understanding of social housing. They also take up the ways in which social housing is regulated through the invocation and manipulation of obscure notions of housing 'need' and 'affordability', and finally, they consider how social housing has provided a focus for debates about sustainable communities and for concerns about anti-social behaviour. Regulating Social Housing provides a rich and insightful analysis that will be of value to legal scholars, criminologists and other social scientists with interests in housing, urban studies and contemporary forms of regulation.