200 Years; United States Welfare Policy, Part 2

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society buses trucks where for two hundred years this week we'll be continuing a discussion on welfare policy in the united states which was begun earlier in our series with us are being william be cannon at the lyndon b johnson school of public affairs at the university of texas at austin paul adams assistant professor and david mr alston professor both in the university's graduate school of social work and then a little more than forty years now since the first national approach to welfare was signed into law in america was that legislation expected to providing universal

solution for the country's welfare needs are something else when it was signed by president roosevelt on august fourteenth nineteen thirty five dr austin for those who had been working for social reform all during the twenties particularly for social insurance there was the hope that this might be a far reaching wide sweeping form all for reform and sensei universal solution but what came out of the social security law was probably much more like a patchwork quilt professor and i would agree when president roosevelt signed the act he called it's a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete and when the act was being shaped and formed it was limited by many factors including the fear that it will be ruled unconstitutional and the desire to exclude things which weren't seen as necessary but was so controversial

such as national health insurance that they might jeopardize the whole package and what is your reaction why not all share the presenter oslo was speaking for a general consensus when he made the remark should just cotton i tend to think that the social security act was like a number of other major oil markets that are represented political consensus especially in the congress i'm doing everything that could be conceived indeed begun by that time there was a characteristic of the legislation a much bluer emergency and therefore would go away under some weather conditions the national welfare program i would counter that we have any kinds of acts that led up to social security that preceded this for the initial piece of roosevelt legislation in the area and how much of a legislation in this package represented proposals that have been talked about since the early part of the century some forms of lolita pensions and workman's compensation insurance have been enacted by

member states but no significant legislation of this type was enacted federal older and twenty so that it was a very new kind of package or what if i never could legally revolutionary dominant approach i think it it certainly represent a major shift in thinking about social welfare in that he'd confronted most of the traditional ideas about welfare such as that if you're out of work if you're dependent on public support that isn't your personal responsibility you know personally responsible for a condition but in another sense it was not revolutionary a tool that is in the sense that roosevelt was concern quite explicitly to find a way of responding to the challenge golf from the left and from the right in response to the social social conditions which will conserve the system was in that sense designed to preserve capitalism rather than

to overthrow it and in that sense it was conservative rather than revolutionary were there there there's another aspect of its revolution of discernment isn't a chef and i guess you alluded to it and that is the national government taking our response not just making that decision to do that one gets impression that it was a somewhat difficult decision to make and one also gets the impression says it was a difficult decision to make we didn't go for direct national program went for immediate national program where by the states and localities were involved as a piece of the administration international program and that pattern of government don't know that foreigners was one that certainly has persisted to this time and said parents and said yes that was important aspect of those are grants made kind of a pattern which is now the cover problem many fields and i think that we often lose sight of the important elements in that particularly

in the public assistance provisions of the social security act because the states were really left in control of the important policy decisions particularly in terms a level of financial benefits while the federal role was really want of financial us subsidy and reimbursement to the states we often tend to describe them as national federal categorical programs but in many ways there really are a series of state categorical programs with federal funding and federal regulations this allowed for a great deal of variability among the states and adaptation the local economic conditions often with a great disadvantage off low poverty stricken people in those states with a pattern timing orderly years of the very poorest states had the poorest welfare programs so that the effect of a public assistance provisions instead of offsetting poverty in rural areas and in a total areas of the country in the south and southwest tended to be the most mature in those states and the more adequate in the industrial states in which

general patterns of income or better it has the it has the public assistance program changed at all in concept looking at the i say that in a context of a lot of different things happening since then i'm wondering whether those public systems programmers aren't so scary part of what has really changed in terms of sense that now i'm getting at the point and the question which is whether was universal solution when we're testing that is to see what's happened since then in that sense it was not universal solution even its beginning the public assistance program by been categorical focus primarily on those groups of persons outside the labor force basically the elderly and the disabled are explicitly excluded any provision for families with an able bodied adult male was expected to be able to work and so we have a continuation of local programs of gentle assistance without any federal subsidy without any federal control the ftc program which was defined as basically for widows

in young children as becomes the controversial program over the years because it didn't fit neatly into the same category as the elderly and yet there are federal monies in it so that a very large portion all people who actually were financial need that were never covered from a public assistance program and one of the important changes since that time has really been the additional foods apps which has become the first federally funded program available to our souls with an unemployed able bodied father that is one of the boys of major change which occurred just varies but if we go back to lead to the act itself i think are in danger and putting the public assistance of overworking other elements of that program which are of a far different kind of which are directed to a far different clientele it may well be that the most universal solution that was an attack on at the same time most revolutionary is affected provided a way for people who are not poor or to be able to take care of their leader needs and that provided a

welfare program for special income section of this country which was not a time poor and was not expected to be poor so that is a kind of problem that we still keep keep running until i think that's a very important point that the insurance aspects of the program was a recognition that dependency going through periods when you can't be self supporting is inherent in the economic system that we live in that will be periods of unemployment falls old age and other possible risks where we cannot support oneself and this is a normal condition it's not something which is only applies to a certain well for our population lacks certain personal characteristics that enable them to support themselves as quite a normal future for everybody and insurance as britt recognizes that but i think that the the poll had been so successful in that stigmatizing well for that the program could only be acceptable provided it was presented as being

insurance program not welfare atoll so it was always made very clear that the act would think that the the social insurance or clinical social security would be self supporting self sufficient and that it would be insurance and you got out of it what you paid into it cause that's not true that is and how it works but that that was how it would it has always been presented among people can happily accept their old age insurance while strongly reject in other forms of wealth that i think that then also is why when we look at the period since the nineteen thirties there's one kind of history all the improvements of the social insurance is and that had basically broad public support and political support and then ways in which the public assistance programs were changed and most of the others to change the public assistance programs up until nineteen seventies were efforts to tighten them to structure the empty

to put more pressure on people who are getting ftc payments particularly the get off at seeing get in the labor market but the thing which was a robbery and more important universe they were the ways in which the social insurance is where brute and they were constantly improve the triggering nineteen sixties so the significance of the cells carry at the nineteen thirty five years that i provide international so national responsibility for certain kinds of crimes party and provided a way but in which people not entirely could be kept out of it your own contributions now those are serving too far reaching kinds of kinds of changes but on the other hand a lot of what i did not go to see how universal the solution there's nothing in the act or indeed in the period really emissions and i think because of that multiple provinces or something relatively speaking there is nothing in the actor or the program's of time dealing with education

sector which now these days and i think those two we would consider part of the lead that was the phrase the country's welfare country's welfare made so and that to that extent it could be deemed to be something less than a universal solution of the country's welfare state well there was also not universal another very important dimension which was the insurance provision was primarily developed for the wage earner industrial wager very large groups of workers were excluded primarily agricultural workers domestic workers and that man practical purposes taking the nineteen thirties at a very high proportion of wall of black workers in the united states were left out the system because a reader i recall for workers in south or they were domestic workers in the north or in small businesses it didn't get coverage by insurance so that we've had a significant problem in all the decades since then that the adequacy of benefits from cancer system have not been equally available up until very recently for example

to agricultural workers and domestic workers it kind that affected by annie and sort of measure this austria is a landmark acting and by definition radios that as revolutionary am not for a clear we've mentioned some of the reasons are not fully clear that they add up to making a landmark and perhaps the landmark allies in this and that is james the whole mood and thrust of policymaking and the federal government does not lie so much and what it actually didn't have that but what a condition like that would come on when and i think you'd get into it was important in being as his enemies recognize a wedge an entering wedge which brought the federal government into social welfare really on a new scale but i think this was important in all the framing and discussions and so and which preceded the act was very clear that one of the things that people have to keep in mind when the time was this will be ruled unconstitutional

much legislation of the new deal prior to that had been ruled unconstitutional and this was a very real and reasonable fear but this was now a landmark in the sense that the federal government was brought into welfare in a new way young that goes back to the fact the president president pierce back in the making hundreds the daughter bill proposed by dorothea dix passed by the congress it would provide federal support land grant support for mel hospitals for the poor he vetoed it on the grounds that involvement in support all before was not the vulgar mouth business and then remain public policy from them basically until nineteen thirty five and so the act itself and the fact is you're saying that a guy by the courts then were significant over double the details of the year i think the the insurance aspects of the of the art is very important to because on the one hand it enabled the act to get through because it appeared that this was not so far as the old age insurance was concerned really wealthy simply encouraging that compelling people to save for the

old age but this had long term effects which were quite negative surprise and the program is concerned it meant that it was always the problem that if it is to operate in any sense analogous to private insurance it had to be actually sound of the money for the program had to come from within the program and people had to derive benefit somehow related to their contributions and this has meant that the program doesn't necessarily me needs so much is paid people according to their contributions which of course means that the more value of earning all through your life and one might argue that former sunnis should be an old age the greater in fact the payment you see from social security in old age we've been talking about about the act and its passage is a true or is that just a myth that i've been encountering

recently that the act was passed in nineteen thirty five when there was indeed much struggle of controversy that preceded it and much generalized opposition now remember the votes actually but that went into a three or four years and suddenly there was a general acceptance of the social security council is actor as adam true to it well i think that over simplifies it two ways one of the reasons it passed in nineteen thirty four i was at there was a groundswell a political interesting immigrant welfare league elderly and so we have the townsend movement and we had huey long was threatening to run for president on the bases really are more wages systems so that there was a scramble in effect why the administration to get legislation there that would take advantage of this and and also cut off the pressures of the townsend act would move out which are much more radical as some small level of support the other thing was that well into the nineteen

fifties the issue whether was actually sound has insurance were hotly being debated in congress and proposals to expand to coverage of the disabled this social insurance provisions of the disabled i was about a little those seven or eight years during the nineteen fifties before he was finally so the insurance companies and traditional opponents for barely gets its expansion over nineteen fifties still true terms of residual feelings in public opinion that there was an acceptance of the idea and some self sustaining some non debilitating way the aged did require help and assistance that was defined as when people retire and that there was no more going back on the concept that the mexican government owns and have some policy in some way i'm taking you know there was no going back on the pulse of what each successive expansion didn't encounter fairly bitter battle within congress all of public support probably was there

before congress ever gotten active the same when we came to medicare by the time i was an actor there was a broad based public support but was still hotly debated within the congress what were the health aspects of this roubini well you know in the early stages of our discussion of health insurance was to be it was a major consumer health insurance program lurking in the wings summers diaz says that as far as about nineteen twelve nineteen fourteen there been serious proposals for national health insurance which had not ever gotten while marshall of mars fish bitterly opposes those huge yellow him to declare corps or the truman years when it came to a real crunch dr fisch by was one of their public spokesman attacking the whole thing but it got and the reason is that one of the most powerful lobbies the american medical association was vehemently opposed to this and they fear was that it would jeopardize the whole package that the whole thing would be thrown out and rather than

fight on health insurance it was decided to junk that for the time being and to get through the especially the old age part with where there was widespread public support i'm i wonder if we would accept what was expressed to me the other day by wilbur cohen former secretary of health education welfare when talking about the social security program what if we would accept that is that as the right view of columns view was that the cells carry act was enacted in nineteen thirty five and nineteen thirty six or seven and i try to be accurate i just can't make it and illustration was proposed to amanda liberalize and that was opposed bitterly but some eminence cups ruin the same thing happen in thirty nine so scared it was condemned again and forty five and forty eight and twenty years later so scary wakes up to be the favorite program of the congress and the presidency in the country by vatican post every step away in some of the company does well yes i think this is so certainly true in the moment and

the spillover effect of that i think are reflected in the experience of the early nineteen seventies with what we now call as is on supplementary security income or weak took those persons that have been covered under the aged and disabled public assistance programs since nineteen thirty five and federal law used their program to do it basically state administration will get into the federal arena packed the administration of the social security system one was because the social security system was widely popular have a broad political base and for the nineteen seventies there was now agreement there the concern for income supplement for the aged over and above what they had available to the insurance program was a national responsibility in the nineteen thirties your drum up you retired labor force and living five or six years now you're talking about people who retired labor for some of twenty five or thirty years and so that that was an important step to be able to do it was because the social security insurance program was already so popular that by treating

this as an really in an aunt of that program it had no significant rational debate when that piece of leo's thing went through in nineteen seventy years ago i think you know you're white writer to talk about the popularity of social security today relative to other aspects of social welfare but i think the the tragedy of that is the sad part of it is that precisely because of this emphasis on the engine on the insurance it's really one of the most progressive forms of social welfare that's to say the way it works is that the employer and the work of both pay a fixed percentage of the payroll and up to a certain point that this is a contribution base and what this means is that people who weren't well above this contribution base which is currently i think thirteen and how thousand dollars pay no tax at all the social security tax on that amount to the higher your income beyond that point the smaller proportion of your income

you pay in the time i would say that the disadvantage of a series of disadvantage is just less time were proper price to pay for the program in other words if you had if you try to finance the cells carry cargo from the beginning of a direct appropriation throw them out of the contributions and receipts of those who are being taxed would you have been able to get a program the dimensions are you about what was feasible than the problems that this legacy has left us with which we have to do that there is a counter argument ball which is that one of the changes over the years has been that the benefits paid out are higher proportionally for the lowest income workers than they are for the highest income workers that is the way in which the benefits are figure that one gets after retirement are such that those are paid the least amount into the program get somewhat more for their investment than those who pay the most into the system and so we have skewed the system somewhat do

you want to get away from observers from it's regressive aspect the table in terms of the benefits people have to retire and is trilled attacks of people pay on an event that is being dealt with now in the current temporary tax reform law or were moving to to exempt from social security tax return to people at the very lowest income and that in fact is one of the key if she's being talked about in terms of future reform a little welfare program business and which is the question of the readjustment of equity through the tax system rather than through direct payments to people and with those comments will bring to a close this second session on welfare policy in the united states which began with the social security act passed in nineteen thirty five and traced his development up to the present time our panelists today have been dealing with empty camden of the lyndon b johnson school of public affairs at the university of texas at austin paul adams assistant professor and david i'm austin professor

both in the university's graduate school of social work this is rex we're inviting you to join us next week for our concluding programme in the series on welfare or two hundred years two hundred years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years is produced by katie is joined by communication center in association with the news and information service all at the university of texas austin this is the long form radio network no