by Christopher Howard
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Product Description
The Welfare State Nobody Knows challenges a number of myths and half-truths about U.S. social policy. The American welfare state is supposed to be a pale imitation of "true" welfare states in Europe and Canada. Christopher Howard argues that the American welfare state is in fact larger, more popular, and more dynamic than commonly believed. Nevertheless, poverty and inequality remain high, and this book helps explain why so much effort accomplishes so little. One important reason is that the United States is adept at creating social programs that benefit the middle and upper-middle classes, but less successful in creating programs for those who need the most help. This book is unusually broad in scope, analyzing the politics of social programs that are well known (such as Social Security and welfare) and less well known but still important (such as workers' compensation, home mortgage interest deduction, and the Americans with Disabilities Act). Although it emphasizes developments in recent decades, the book ranges across the entire twentieth century to identify patterns of policymaking. Methodologically, it weaves together quantitative and qualitative approaches in order to answer fundamental questions about the politics of U.S. social policy. Ambitious and timely, The Welfare State Nobody Knows asks us to rethink the influence of political parties, interest groups, public opinion, federalism, policy design, and race on the American welfare state.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Good Introduction, 2007-12-12
Professor Howard's book is definitly a good introduction to the welfare state in America. As mentioned previously it includes a wide range of programs and provokes many unique questions. I would highly recommend this book to anyone potentially interested in social policy. (Also if you happen to be a W&M student I highly recommend you take one of Prof. Howard's classes!)
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Informative, concise, even witty, remarkable social science, 2007-07-24
This is a book describing the American welfare state. It is a very good book in a number of ways.
First, it tells you alot of things you don't already know. It is genuinely informative.
Second, it is concise. It is a fairly comprehensive book, and it comes in just over 200 pages.
Third, it is actually -- believe it or not -- well written. Howard is witty. Not Mark Steyn witty, not make you laugh out loud witty, but -- by the standards of this field -- this book is a good read.
Fourth, the book does not have any obvious ideological bias. Howard knows the difference between facts and opinion, and draws attention to it. He discussed the widespread belief that the American welfare system is inferior to that of Europe, because it is smaller and transfers less income. He then notes that this a moral judgment, and not one that he is going to draw. On a fairly consistent basis, Howard honestly tries -- and mostly succeeds -- to just describe things and to not lecture us about our moral inferiority compared to Sweden.
The book does not really have a central argument; it is kind of all over the place in what it is saying. The main idea is that the American welfare state is bigger than people think, because it includes alot of indirect but huge tax programs and regulations. This is an important point, that should be more often stressed.
Howard concludes by discussing how the American system has failed, compared to Europe, to redistribute income and to promote equality. Howard, as he makes fairly clear, agrees with most of our academic class in thinking that the system should redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.
Howard, however, does not just give you his opinion. He asks the question, do the American people want to resdistribute income from rich to poor. He does a detailed study of the polling data on this question.
He finds that most rich people would prefer to hang onto their money. No surprise there. He also finds, however, that relatively few poor people want the government to redistribute wealth from rich to poor. THIS is surprising. You would think that people on the bottom of society would favor taking money from Bill Gates and giving it to them.
But no. The American Dream tells the poor, work hard, and you or your kids could BE the next Bill Gates. Our system, in short, says focus your energy on lifting yourself up, not tearing others down. The majority of Americans believes in this.
Howard tees off on this surprising poll finding into a general discussion of exactly what the American welfare system (broadly defined) achieves. He compares the system to a stationary bike. Alot of huffing and puffing, but no movement. What he means, of course, is that very little net income is being transferred from the rich to the poor.
I understand why Howard thinks this is no movement, but I disagree with him. No, our system does not soak the rich and give to the poor, in large enough amounts to radically alter the distribution of wealth. That is not the purpose of our system; as Howard documents, very few people want that result, in ths country.
Despite that, alot of money does change hands, due to our system, and this has a big effect on our society. Look at the mortgage interest deduction, for example. This is basically a massive, if slightly indirect, goverment subsidy which primarily benefits the middle class. Many more examples could be given, from the tax treatment of private pension plans to that of health care benefits. (The only really large exception to this statement is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which genuinely tries to uplift the poor..)
Virtually all of these policies benefit the middle class. Their purpose is to make life more secure, and less risk-filled, for the broad middle, those who work hard and play by ordinary American rules. And this, if you think about it, is exactly what you would expect a democratic government to do in a middle-class country. It reflects the values, and the interests, of the majority of the voters. I, for one, do not find this either surprising or disturbing.
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