200 Years; United States Welfare Policy, Part 3

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 this is rick's we're for two hundred years this week we will be concluding our examination of welfare policy in the united states i don't want us are being william the canon 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 at the bowling today when i was there so much clamor for welfare reform recently in the seventies which continues to survey by the end of the nineteen sixties there was a lot of public attention on the very rapid rise in the numbers of people on the ftc

program together with a sense that law and the states were not being effective draw a ministering program and that the program was largely out of control two dr austin and professor adams i think also that well for welfare reform had an important political appeal a popular appeal to the right as it were rather liked all in order that's to say to appeal to the sentiments that people have about people getting welfare payments who didn't deserve the two aren't working and could be and also it had a certain racist appeal because this large expansion of the ftc roles that dr austin has talked about was a disproportionately of blacks and i'm certainly perceived in this way and that therefore the appeal of welfare reform can be seen as in a sense a reactionary having a reaction a popular political appeal and didn't count

i agree with my two colleagues to survive the ftc role in need the increase in the number of recent aid to families with dependent children increase from four five million at the beginning of the decade to limit well at the un and that's a big number in a lot of money so obviously get concerned about it and they were the political aspects but i think there was also a lot of other reasons one is there was i think some concern at the end of the nineteen sixties and the beginning of a nineteen seventies era an erratic if not declining industrial and economic productivity of the port workers but i think there was also a movie who's in the administrations of the time that there was an isolated segment of the society that needed if we're going to be changed and improved and needed a certain special kind of treatment a treatment that had not been given or if it had been attempted was not adequate in the nineteen sixties and this came to a head in the family

assistance plan which was aimed at somehow changing the family structure and behavior of particularly identified segment of american society and this isn't on that one but this later this is in some ways more revolutionary and so security again that's important to know where the proposals for it federal reform welfare system emerged this was a topic that people who consider themselves liberals had been talking about for a long time so that there was a sympathetic response to this you know those are the reasons why it was grafted at the beginning of the nixon administration were also because of intentions to gain more control over the program and got back into force regulations in fact does the whole political battle around the family assistance program had to do with whether one could hold together a coalition of liberal supporters of fertilization typically senator ribicoff and in a sense conservative supporters of

fertilization and if i remember correctly fat went down the drain basically because the coalition fell art i think it's true that we have to be careful what we mean by welfare reform says the term is popularly used it tends to mean getting people off welfare now there are many measures through that through the sixties and before that richard was argued would reduce the welfare rolls in the long term many strategies replied we're trying to such as providing services separating services from the money and so forth and with each of these measures what happened was that more people actually came onto the rolls and so it was sad to reform failed but if the reform is seen as providing assistance to people who were going we need of it and were in fact eligible for it then it can be seen that the expansion of the rules itself was actually the welfare reform yes i think that's a good point because they're one of the aspects of

reform was a structural or technical aspect which is to say that different parts of the garment might've been going different directions it's true that there were programs government programs which really did have as an objective to get people off the roll one of the major objectives of not too loudly announced of the economic opportunity program that mean if britain was to get people on the rules there was a considerable knowledge at the beginning of the nineteen sixties that there was some universe in the order of twenty million people who are eligible for public assistance and there are only two or three million people who are getting and that discrepancy was deemed to be have not denied the fact not a virtue and therefore you had large standing programs in the nineteen sixties that were designed deliberately get people on welfare rolls now the same time as i say in an apartment and i'm often so that when you get to the end to uncover the truth in gm from before well isn't that's almost where we are today as a family assistance program did not get passed there've been a number of studies since then the one boy representative martha graham has there been a number of studies within at bellevue undersecretary

weinberger cause there seems to be contending agreement that there needs to be major changes both for administrative reasons and for equity reasons and yet politically it seems at the moment there is no active loan political support for widespread no welfare reform that's on elisa's with the question of where do we go with the problems of people agree on it we actually are to get some movement that's an interesting thought through virginity or welfare reform and this operational sense of reducing cases and wrote an infeasible to reduce feral i think that oh one of the crucial issues which we keep going back to is the distinction between income protection which is provided in partisan aspect the ones involved in the labor force you're talking now for example about improving unemployment compensation they were talking about

improving the benefits under social security insurance mr ed greece again the need for a way to systems so there's that approach which might tend to reduce the number of persons who are being treated within what we tradition call welfare system on a case by case basis doesn't necessarily mean a smaller number people read receiving some kind of transfer within our broader economic says i'm thinking more specifically on public assistance or c one of mr lansky says he sees in his book on the family assistance plan was that the rules were rising for reasons unrelated not very heavily related to the can to the condition of the economy is his phrases the roles in good times and then the royals royals and that suggest something systemic and now it's so it suggests a different kind of welfare reform just something that goes to them to the fundamental what she deemed to be the family of his of us would say if you if you just take your the economic temporary economic effects which is

one of the things you're saying baron and more extend unemployment compensation and you can handle problems but the question is whether there is an isolated in my mind is whether there is a group an identifiable group in the society are only the welfare program as a way of life my feeling is though from me the information i've seen that that group in a sense from the welfare system is where life is very small what we have is a much larger group at this point in an already by the night from the nineteen sixties our economic system and a mentor systems changed enough solve the problem of different dimensions there are increasing numbers of families with full time employed adults at least one adult in the family where the income earned by full time earning it takes over the minimum wage and project out to forty hours a week and does not provide enough income to pay rent and buy food in most urban centers if you look at the cost of living figures are not even up to the level of the bureau of

labor's us are standard family income so we have an increasingly sizable number of families who are in the labor force who are working with the income does not meet those cash needs to survive and most of the deep into a martyr families this is why there's some talk about using the tax system to provide more benefits and that more deductions for more join an order that such workers can keep a larger proportion of their income the other thing are single parent families in here the pattern is to move much more toward those families moving in an out of work there for heating assistance because they are employed in that unemployed or particularly younger families and so you have a high concentration of dc families with their young mothers with their young children must have a lot of overall thirty so look at any one number at him one time at a large number but they're not necessarily the same group eight years where we don't have an issue major issue permits to welfare and i think that is not a religion it's in this suit

but it's not a realistic yes but it wasn't that the issue around which the welfare reform efforts we've all had them evolved many many of them i think so yes but if it's not a realist to the masses of false line to take that is if the assumption is that there is a group of people if only we could reform the treatment rehabilitate them and motivate them in some way and they would find work and it would come off the welfare rolls and i think this is an ancient guide the play shows issue in two dimensions the average we have made to address that problem by programs of training and m men are trying to win program and others have not worked on the other hand people who are afdc recipients continue to come on and then go off again finding jobs and going back in the labor force without going through that machine or so there the problem has only a limited degree there are some families in every community that have long term problems but very small number

so they the problem all motivating people to get back in the workforce seems to be not a major issue really in the sense that where we do have men are training programs they're always more prisons requesting encryption of those programs that we're draining swamps of the families are now on episode sound as if you've got their prom song one of i don't have a problem income protections are saying that's what the social security act was really all about the question of this point is what kind of changes in the end general system we are now faced with making in order to address the issues of income protection orders what the social security act wasn't just saying that the council of economic advisers is more important part of the litigation will ensure that reason i'm saying that this that this policy you're probably is closer to their a real man than program administrator is women aged only at the level the secretary this is oh this is a top priority issue but other welfare issues such as healthy would say that we have

began working as you made as you point out in another context we've had a national health insurance program working in the mine since nineteen twelve and also dealing with the problem health cause would still again be a major factor in dealing with from a poverty that is a high number of families were poor are poor because they're afraid of the cost of your health or your health and the cost of medical care or we can say and that's an interesting one and his without formally concerned about the problem particularly concerned about public health for people of income protection for people or the orientation of the sixties was a focus on a clientele a target group for people poor people need income production but they're not the only ones for people that health care but they're not the only one says are you are you suggesting that the major or even welfare policy will be in in these cut across categories it i think that's a good point i'm one of the criticisms that was made of the poverty programs of the sixties by many english

commentators such as richard kipnis was precisely that they focused on a particular target population they identified certain people is poor and they called upon them to identify themselves as poor before they could be helped and this of course goes against the yacht the whole universe of this tradition of the british welfare state which was as it was instituted up during and after world war two and it's in a sense that approach the selective approach which emphasizes that we have to help certain categories of people lie has a whole number of problems such as pitch to stigmatize those people by the very fact of it doesn't your argument we do is i would think i would be land and am land too radically changing the so scary at the nineteen thirty five and taking its focus off the edge in other words i would not now at a time when a major aspect welfare policies reduction and redefinition of age and aging in the society and it sets going redefinition government programs and parks and disability i had a chance of them last couple weeks

to talk with staff alone united center and to hear presentations what persons ranging from the republican study group to be a rebel land and at w two a general agreement that there is no political base for anti poverty programs those programs targeted the lowest income group and that the more than that their perspective was that changes in what we now call have called a welfare system and are really the whole system around the social security act won't occur in a number of different sectors in the tax law reusch unemployment compensation in relation to social security benefits bought that we're unlikely to seriously address the least for the rest of this decade the kind of single package reform which the family assistance program proposal for example representatives seem to be from right to left agreement that that route there was no we're going down that route at this time and we're not going to have a a special governmental program

for the aged what are we going to do for me that's again it's a mix of a welfare and other kind of question i think what's happening is that the very concept of welfare is changing this changing the ways we just describe that is also changing and that i believe that well for it has to be an aspect of every government program and in part that's what the nineteen sixties you have focused the sun you can no longer build highways without getting an impact statement of some kind which is really a welfare kind of statement so that the defense department and agriculture department they have that all in my judgment should have the welfare focus and well for planning in terms of the cut welfare consequences of their own program and again to lisa welfare now is getting more broadly diffuse carmen and they didn't have time to administer it a lot of that has defined now increasing in terms of service programs which are common in many different settings and will probably be expanded so the older americans act through will be expanded called

health services programs will be expanded amenities reach are targeted too broadly to low income but not necessary to the welfare population and there will continue to be state administered systems up a kind of emergency assistance for families that are in desperate need all the sudden what the question the long term support would really involve the aged and the disabled hand matt and some days a younger person's tried and labor force looks like it will be built more structurally through the tax system to unemployment compensation provisions and unemployment compensation for example for workers or you don't have your creditor but were really unemployed in a technical sense if it is possible to provide it seems to me a whole range of services which will benefit the pool without there being specifically targeted to the poor for example the national health service such as we have in britain it does provide free medical care for the entire population and on the sea the poor

major beneficiaries not necessarily the largest beneficiaries but they are beneficiaries the same is true of child allowances that is if the government has regarded as having responsibility some responsibility to pay for this is the support for raising children but it's not simply an individual responsibility but one of the whole community then background can be made to all families according to a number of children which obviously will benefit the paw know if you say why should a grant and those countries of course have such a crowd and you say why should that be paid to the rich well it can be clawed back through the tax system can be gamed that money what you were sent as i think quite tense ramify in consequences in that if you if the terms to cut across program such as a national health insurance program which deals in heavily with everybody and rejects categorical program such as a programmer made to the agent you've got major consequences for the government in this country one of the things when my

perverse they say about a party programmer and a good program is that it is a way to limit the reach of government here that keeps coming from getting in everybody's business all time won just aren't going to cut across programs and everybody's business either by giving you pointed to give them syria and even russia well the peculiar thing about about these these selective type of program is that it involves an immense amount of government intervention in the lives of certain individuals not the richards true that the remarkable fact about welfare programs that you directed specifically to the poor is that they tend to involve a much greater degree of scrutiny of control over the lives of the poor then to probe welfare programs directed at the rich such as sir tax concessions or price supports for farmers and so on which involve little no intervention of those beneficiaries one that but his on again when every kurd issues and talk about welfare reform which is the

red tape paper were kind of flowing again the more selective the program the more you have to determine eligibility to more complex of regulations become and the more there are you there are two observer of regulations uniformly and then you have recurrent investigations and find out there are higher rates and therefore and then the program becomes discredited so that we've found through a sad experience that this is a problem but i think the question you're raising there dean cannon points even further into the future which is the whole distribution between federal state and local in this country over the years ahead of responsibility for the actual management administration and we're now having strong for us for de centralization responsibility service programs to the states and my guess is within the states to local levels and if we now have some degree of stability my guess is that over time we will continue to be centralized these responsibilities because that's where the trust of their political support will move i believe in the centralization of policymakers philosophical matter but i

think at the moment reflects a question about government as much as anything else that is to say it reflects a question about the capacity of government to handle these large scale come across programs for a population of over two hundred million people and that's no by no means the unanswered question so highly problematic one in and brings up the connection between whether you you wanna do good agenda right will and you think their local government allegiances are really capable of administering large scale programs like this i'd like to hear little comment in that direction my fiance and i probably disagree with that reviewed two about this because so because i'm not in favor of the centralization at least it depends what that means of course that one argument one can make is that

that all the advances in a sense and social welfare in this country have involved a greater degree of socialization and involve the federal government becoming more involved and this superseding the old happened the nineteenth century the portal pattern of local responsibility that is something that this had to be overcome and i think the research which compares the welfare state in different countries has shown that the higher the degree of centralization of well well for ohio the level of welfare provisions i have a degree of economic and social security this is true in all signal that we face realistically the fact all that we've not done realistically with the ministrations and refining already in us as our program international <unk> system even with that computer capability we know hal in fact is having very serious difficulties and as owners major political attack now fully employed computer technology to actually solve problems so that we might think in this country

given our federal system after experiment with new devices of federal leadership federal funding federal initiative one but the idea of a national public welfare agency woodall public welfare staff and faculty members were federal establishment is a horrendous crime yet at the same time we have to acknowledge him i think the programs revenue sharing their illustrating somebody that we don't have the kind of expert administrative capacity at the local level would have to have i don't say that it can get ugly we can take a massive training effort in this country that no one's even designed to do and why do you think the debate in the austin city council on this issue is evidence of the way the local committees can actually enter into these issues of optimistic note are may be pessimistic note that we have a long retraining program we bring to an end our series on welfare our panelist this week and then being william b camel on 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 as rex we're for 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 of it is driven by communication center in association with the news and information services all at the university of texas austin this is the long horned radio network