welfare state

Review: Are Basic Income Programs Captive to the Power of the Market?

by Simon Torracinta

Two historians argue that the basic income is an idea that is circumscribed by the assumption that society will be organized around markets. A reviewer says the programs are the starting point for politics that escape that constraint. 

The Blindness of Colorblindness: Revisiting "When Affirmative Action was White"

by Ira Katznelson

The author of a key work on the way racial discrimination was built into the New Deal and postwar American social policy addresses objections to his book two decades later, and concludes that white supremacy and the influence of southern conservatives over legislation are still powerful explanations. 

Do French Pension Protests Reveal a Lazy Nation?

by Robert Zaretsky

French workers are among the most productive in Europe, but today's protests over a potential increase in the retirement age show a long tradition of defending the value of leisure as the chance to pursue one's own ends outside of paid labor. 

Looking for King's Legacy? Try Guaranteed Income Programs

Thanks in part to a push from Johnnie Tillmon of the National Welfare Rights Association, MLK championed abolishing poverty by guaranteeing a basic income. 

50 Years at Cook County Hospital Prove Abortion is Healthcare

by Amy Zanoni

Abortion rights activists have focused on horror stories of the pre-Roe era as cautionary tales, but the history of public hospitals since Roe shows that real reproductive freedom requires expanded access to care and a robust social safety net. 

Review Essay: How the Biggest Party Started Thinking Small

Books by Michael Kazin and Lily Geismer trace the rise and fall of the Democratic Party's reign as a party of big ideas and big initiatives. 

The Failed Promise of Free, Universal School Lunch

by Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower

With the lapsing of pandemic support for expanded school lunches, the nation returns to its historical roots of stigma and stinginess around the feeding of children. 

Why Does US Policy Make Things Hard on Parents?

For decades, the political idea that social services aimed at supporting parents and children constitute a governmental intrusion on the family has been used to thwart the kinds of supports that parents and children in the rest of the industrial world enjoy. 

Abortion isn't a "Choice" without Racial Justice

by Sara Matthiesen

The recent failure of the broad social spending initiatives of Build Back Better and the impending judicial overthrow of Roe are connected, and signal the need for a movement for reproductive freedom that goes beyond "choice" to address systemic inequalities. 

History Can Guide Fixes for America's Abysmal Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes

by Michelle Bezark

The brief history of the U.S. Children's Bureau shows that treating the health of mothers and infants as a national issue can get results. 

In Praise of One-Size-Fits-All Social Policy

by Lawrence B. Glickman

"To call a vaccine mandate a constraint on an “intensely personal decision” is to obfuscate the fundamental reality that pandemics are intensely social."

Joe Manchin's Denigration of "Entitlements" is Nothing New

Historian Larry Glickman's work shows that Joe Manchin's fear of "entitlements" is part of a longstanding idea that American capitalism can't work without the threat of poverty and immiseration.

Will Biden Reverse 50 Years of Failure on Child Care Policy?

by Anna K. Danziger Halperin

Achieving better childcare policy requires recognizing women may be both mothers and workers, and moving past ideological views that women's economic independence is against the interest of families. 

FDR’s Second 100 Days Were Cooler Than His First 100 Days

by Jordan Weissmann

The first 100 days of the New Deal could be described as disaster response. The second 100 days, according to historians William Leuchtenberg, Erich Rauchway and David Kennedy, were when the administration took steps that transformed labor relations and birthed a modern social welfare state. 

The Era of Big Government is Here

From a conservative writer's perspective, the conservative movement is at a low moment, without the ability to set the boundaries of policy debates as the Biden administration considers deficit spending and progressive reform.

The United States Is Picking Up Where The Great Society Left Off

by John Stoehr

Comparing the recent COVID relief bill to the 2009 bailout of the subprime crisis shows a rapid turn away from the Republican and New Democratic consensus that social welfare assistance must be tied to work and limited to people who are "deserving."

‘There’s No Natural Dignity in Work’

by Ezra Klein

Is it time to revisit the basic premise of American welfare policies that encouraging or requiring paid labor is the best way to deal with poverty? 

Do Daniel Patrick Moynihan's Issues with his Father Help Explain Mass Incarceration?

by Ben Tumin

Ben Tumin's "Skipped History" video series tackles the legacy of the Moynihan Report through the work of historians Elizabeth Hinton and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. 

The Supreme Court We Need

by Linda Greenhouse

The veteran Supreme Court reporter argues that the nation needs the court to enable government to actually take action to solve big national problems. 

How the Welfare State Became the Neoliberal Order (Review)

by Pablo Pryluka

Although the Tennessee Valley Authority was a pioneering public works project, its alumni worked in Latin America to advance redevelopment projects that elevated the authority of big business, a model now associated with the neoliberal turn in the developed world.