Synopses & Reviews
Creating the Welfare State investigates how private business and public bureaucracy worked together to create the structure of much of the modern welfare state in America. Covering the period from the 1980s to the present, this important volume employs interdisciplinary techniques to demonstrate how politics, economics, law, and social theory merged over the course of a century of policy formulation and implementation. The authors also draw upon previously unconsulted sources from government warehouses and archives to analyze the operation of early federal social welfare programs such as vocational rehabilitation. Their discussions range from those early programs to modern ones such as cost of living pay adjustments and social security disability benefits. This emphasis on the notion of the continuing development of welfare programs is a significant factor in the welfare state controversies--a factor often ignored by other historians and writers.
Review
Professors Edward Berkowitz, and Kim McQuaid provide the reader with a nice account of the development of the modern welfare state in America. This is an excellent book that should be read by anyone sincerely interested in the development of social security and welfare policies in America.Perspective Winter
Description
Bibliography: p. [229]-238.
About the Author
EDWARD BERKOWITZ is Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Program in History and Public Policy at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.KIM MCQUAID is Associate Professor of History at Lake Erie College.