1950s
The Fair Deal programs and the values that drove those programs
What was GI Bill and Redlining driven by value of American Exceptionalism and racism
Most important programs of the War on Poverty
What are Medicare and Medicaid
Idea introduced in 1970 but defeated by a coalition of conservatives and liberals
What is Guaranteed Annual Income
Impact of shrinking Block Grants
What is left unfunded mandates and created a huge fiscal problem for states.
PRWORA stands for:
What is: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
Impact of industrialization of the 50s and the Marshall plan
What was: US booming economy bc we had the only post war industrial base that was not decimated, then the Marshall plan evened things out and our dominance threatened by growing international economies which led to increased unemployment
Other vital co-occurring programs in the War on Poverty.
What are:
Title XX of Social Security Act
What is: establishes revenue sharing as a way for states to get maximum flexibility in exchange for increased fiscal responsibility and responsibility.
goals included prevention, reduction and elimination of welfare dependency
The goals of Ronald Regan's social welfare policy
What are: Ronald Regan sought to “transfer the social costs of the economic changes brought on by deindustrialization and globalization to the most vulnerable AND to promote exclusive reliance on the public sector"
The slogan for PRWORA
What is End Welfare As We Know It
Causes of the poor remaining invisible
What was: Isolation of urban poor and rural poor = invisible poor plus ads and tv promoting universal well being
The values behind the War on Poverty
What are preferred employment over welfare and work incentives over income support while supporting traditional values like individualism and self reliance.
Taxes in 1970s
What is became increasingly regressive
The economic policy promoted by Ronald Reagan
Supply Side economics (Reaganomics, trickle down economics): lower taxes spurs economic growth
high interest rates to combat inflation + cutting taxes for wealthy Americans
PRWORA regulations
What are time limits, work requirements, and other stringent conditions
The reasons the public sector abandoned low income populations and focused on middle and upper income folks.
What was: Post war anti-communist ethos + efforts to roll back new deal programs + increased right wing pressure --> public sector abandoning low income populations and focusing on middle and upper income folks
The long term unintended consequences of the War on Poverty
What is: because it did not achieve its grandiose goals after so much programming it left policy vulnerable to the critique that welfare programs promoted poverty and dependency, and that government was the source of those problems.
This program changed the way programs were funded and left nonprofits confused.
What are: Block Grants
The Welfare Queen
A "welfare queen" is a derogatory term used in the United States to describe individuals who are perceived to misuse or abuse the welfare system, often through fraudulent means, child endangerment, or manipulation (wikipedia)
This program was first time since 1935 an entitlement program was abolished
What is TANF?
• It ended individual recipients’ legal entitlement to benefits; • It replaced an open-ended benefit program based on family need and replaced it with a time-limited one with lifetime limits; • It permitted states to impose family caps; • It added mandatory work requirements.
Funding was altered from unlimited categorical federal grants to states and replaced with capped block grants that gave flexibility back to the states via the block grant, which led to license to experiment in program design and a patchwork of responses
Post war progress left these Americans behind
What are: 40 million Americans and half of all African Americans
The mother's pension program that was extended twice in the 1960s
What are:
The Culture of Poverty Thesis
What is the belief that the poor, particularly African American and Latinos, had a different (inferior) cultural norms re values, skills, aspirations and behavior. AND these qualities are transmitted generation to generation
Reagan argued that the expansion of public policies undermined these values.
What are traditional values such as sanctity of the family, fiscal responsibility and individual freedom.
The most effective social policy advance during 1990s
What is the expansion of the earned income tax credit