Search

The U.S. Congress is about to enact legislation that turns the controversial Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program on its head. The changes made in this program; which was designed to help needy single mothers stay home with their children, represents a sharp break with the philosophy of the landmark Social Security Act of 1935, of which AFDC is a part. The new law transforms AFDC from an income-support into a mandatory work and training program and shifts social welfare responsibility from the Federal government to families and the states. The new welfare program meshes well with current conservative thought. It claims to be forging a new social contract that spells out the reciprocal responsibilities between AFDC mothers and the state. Welfare reform has captured the support of many liberals because proponents initially promised a national minimum benefit, child care and Medicaid benefits, increases in services and an extension of AFDC, to two-parent families in all states. The original promise of enriched employment services for welfare mothers also was eroded. Instead of mandating the states to provide education, training and job placement programs as initially proposed, the Federal bill makes most services optional.

The article comments on health care services in the U.S. Welfare state privatization is most advanced in health care. For years, Federal policies have subsidized health care providers, but more recently they have encouraged greater competition and more cost sharing, arguing that market strategies make social welfare programs less costly and more efficient as well as improving the quality of care. Government policies have played a significant role in corporatizing health care. Although privatization may not have been the immediate or the only goal, the Federal government has regularly, brought private enterprise into the delivery of health services.

The article discusses the book "The New Politics of Poverty," by Lawrence M. Mead. This is not just another antigovernment treatise on poverty and welfare. Mead, a conservative policy analyst who teaches politics at New York University, wants more government intervention in citizens' lives. Specifically, he calls for a "new paternalism" to impose behavioral standards on the poor, who, in his view, have become dysfunctional and unable, if not unwilling, to cope. The call for a new paternalism is neither random, accidental nor harmless. Rather, it is a highly political response to the adverse consequences of decisions made by business and the state as they tried to manage the economic crisis that surfaced in the mid-1970s.