Society, Social Values, and Modern Views of Human Nature 78
SUMMARY 78
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 79
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 80
Chapter 5 America and Poverty: Two Paths: The American Experience II 81
Overiew 81
Three Discoveries of Poverty 81
First Discovery 82
The Fading of the First Discovery 83 Second Discovery 83 Third Discovery 84
The War on Poverty 86
Eight Outcomes 87
The Skirmish against Poverty 89
Families, Children, and Poverty 89
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (“Welfare”) 90
An Old-New Path 92
Social Security 94
Contrasting Values and Aims 94
The Paths Forward 95
Human Nature and the American Dream 96
SUMMARY 97
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 97
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 98
Chapter 6 Concepts for Social Welfare 99
Overview 99
What Is Social Welfare? 100
Social Policy, Social Services, and Social Work 102
Social Policy 102
Social Services 103
Social Work 103
Chapter 7
Ideology, Social Policy, and Government Intervention 103
Five Routes to Social Policy 107
The Federal and Pluralist System 109
The Economic Sphere 111
Fiscal Policy 112
Monetary Policy 113
The Importance of Fiscal and Monetary Policy 114
A Tarnished Business Sector? 115
A Second Welfare System—Corporate and Individual Welfare 116
Globalization and Social Justice 117
The G. W. Bush Administration 120
Obama Administration: A Return to Federalization—Ideology or Pragmatism? 120
The Debt Commission and Select Committee on Deficit Reduction 122
International and National Background Features and The Search for the Dream 123
International 123
The United States 123
SUMMARY 125
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 126
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 127
Examining a Social Welfare Program within the Context of Social Justice: Structural Components, Alternative Program Characteristics, and Evaluation 128
Overview 128
Structural Components 129
What are the Needs and Goals to Be Met? 129
What Is the Form of Benefit that the Program Produces? 130
Who Is Eligible for the Program? 130
How Is the Program Financed? 131
What Is the Level of Administration? 132
Alternative Program Characteristics 133
Residual, Institutional, Developmental, or Socioeconomic Asset Development 133
Selective or Universal 136
Benefits in Money, Services, or Utilities 139
Public or Private 140
Central or Local 140
Lay or Professional 142
Evaluating the Program 143
Adequacy 143
Financing 143
Coherence 146
Latent Consequences 146
Testing for Social Justice 147
Whose Social Justice? 147
Views and Proponents 148
The Social Work Clinical Practice Sphere and Social Justice 150
Reader’s Choice 150
SUMMARY 151
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 151
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 152
Chapter 8 The Welfare Society and Its Clients 153
Overview 153
Who is a Client of Social Welfare? 153
What is Poverty? 155
Understanding Poverty 155
Absolute Poverty 156
Relative Comparison Poverty 159
A Description of the Poor 160
Income and Wealth Inequality 163
Causes of Rising Inequality 164
Housing Wealth 167
Counterintuitive Statistics 167
Intergenerational Mobility 168
The Effect of Some Government Programs 169
The Near-Poor and Expectations 170
Other Views of Poverty 170
Relative Inequality 171
Lack of Power, Access, and Inclusion 172
The Underclass/Culture of Poverty Thesis 173
Strategies for Fighting Poverty 174
Social Utilities 174
Investment in Human Capital 174
Income Transfers 175
Rehabilitation 176
Aggregative and Selective Economic Measures 176
Participation and Organization 178
Ideology Revisited 178
The Second Bush Administration 179
Tax Cuts 180
Social Security 180
Medicare 180
Starve the Beast 180
The Obama Administration 181
Ideology Once Again 183
SUMMARY 184
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 184
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 185
Chapter 9 Current Social Welfare Programs—Economic Security
Overview 186
Social Insurance Programs 187
Social Security (OASDI) 187
Unemployment Insurance 198
Temporary Disability Insurance 202
Workers’ Compensation 203
Income Support Programs 207
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families 207
Supplemental Security Income 210
General Assistance 212
Earned Income Tax Credit 214
Socioeconomic Asset Development 216
SUMMARY 218
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 219
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 220
Chapter 10
Social Welfare Programs: Sustaining the Quality of Life 221
Overview 221
Managed Care 222
Strategies to Achieve Savings and Profits 223
Public Criticism, Courts, and Legislation 224
Halth Care Programs 225
Medicare 225
Medicaid 229
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 234
Implpementation Steps began in 2010 234
Effective (2012) 235
Effective (2013) 235
Effective (2014) 235
186
Effective (2015) 237
Effective (2018) 237
How Is the New System to Be Financed? 237
Issues 238
Legal Challenges 238
Payment Advisory Board 239
Abortion 239
What is Medical Care? 240
Universal Health Care: Public or Private Auspices? 240
Nutrition Programs 240
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 240
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children 242
School Lunch and Breakfast Programs 243
Housing 245
Veterans’ Benefits 248
Employment Programs 251
Personal Social Services 252
Title XX (Social Services Block Grant) 254
Defense Department Social and Mental Health Services 255
Services to Families 255
Services to Children 256
Mental Health Services 262
Corrections 264
SUMMARY 266
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 266
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 267
Chapter 11 Nonprofit and Private Social Welfare 268
Overview 268
Early Patterns 269
The Nonprofit Sector 269
Types of Nonprofit Agencies 271
The Proprietary Private For-Profit Organization 272
Services of the Nonprofit and Private Sectors 272
Getting and Spending 273
Privatization 274
Private and Nonprofit Agencies as Social Welfare Programs 276 Finances, Recessions, Budgets, and Mergers 278 A Point of View 279
Leadership, Class, and Gender 279
Trends in Volunteering 281
Private and Public Spheres 281
Uses of Public Funds and Power 281
Tax Laws and Policy 282
Accountability 283
National Policy: Church and State 283
The Marketplace and the Nonmarket Domain 285
Family and Freinds 286
Toward the Future 287
SUMMARY 289
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 289
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 290
Chapter 12 Social Work: The Emergence of a Profession 291
Overview 291
The Workers of “Good Works” 292
The Process of Professionalization 296
A Brief History of Practice and Methods 297
Development of the Professional Association 301 Social Work with Groups 302
Community Organization and Social Planning 304
Toward a Unified Profession 306
SUMMARY 307
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 307
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 308
Chapter 13 Social Work: Functions, Context, and Issues 309
Overview 309
The Purposes of Social Work 310
The Professional within Complex Organizations 310 Complex Organizations and Professional Culture 311 Complex Organizations and Authority 311 The Profession and Professional Autonomy 312 Alternative Roles and Settings 312
Society, the Functions of Social Work, and Services for People 313
The Bottom Line 313
The Two Tracks of Social Work: Cause and Function 313
Generic–Specific Social Work 317
Professionals and Volunteers 318
Issues Confronting the Profession 319
Multiculturalism 319
Technologies 320
Managed Care 320
Religion and Spirituality 321
Leadership 321
Sufficiency of Qualified Social Workers and Other Resources 322
Accountability 322
2010 Social Work Congress 323
Proposed Imperatives 323
SUMMARY 324
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 324
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 325
Chapter 14 Social Trends Affecting Social Welfare 326
Overview 326
National Society 326
Individual and Shared Goals 327
The International Economy 328
Population Growth and Resources 329
Food Security 330
The Downside of the Upside 330
A Human/Nature Crisis and Worldwide Emergency 331
The United States: A Changing Population, a Selected Social Welfare Agenda, and Social Justice 332
Productivity and the Service Economy 335
Ethnicity and Pluralism 336
Gender 339
Gay Men and Lesbians 340
The Place of Social Welfare in a Changing Context 345
SUMMARY 346
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 346
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 347
Chapter 15 Toward the General Welfare and Social Justice 348
Overview 348
Children and Poverty 349
Adverse Effects of Poverty 350
Universal Services are Needed 352
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan 353
Health outcomes 353
Social outcomes 354
Resources 355
Education 356
Employment and Training 356
Criticisms 356
What Should Be Done? 357
What Will it Cost? 358
Social Workers, Services, and Policy Choices 359
Elder Abuse 360
What are the Major Types of Elder Abuse? 360
What Is Known About Interventions? 361
Social Policy 362
Implications for Social Work 362
Globalization, Privatization, Socially Just Services, and the Future of Social Welfare 363
The State of the Welfare State 363
Privatization: The Strategy of Choice 364 Managed Care 367
Drug Abuse Services 367
The Roles of Social Work 368
Issues for Social Workers 368
The Choices Before US: Social Justice and the Baby-Boomer
Generation 369
Retirement 370
Health Care 370
Technology and Social Action 371 Where We Are 373
Coda: Two Views of the Future 375
SUMMARY 376
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION 376
MYSEARCHLAB CONNECTIONS 377
Notes 378 Index 399
Preface
As this is being written, the world is faced with serious social and economic problems. In Europe, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal are experiencing serious financial problems. It has been necessary for members of the European Union to bail them out with loans. One path for these nations to solve their problems consists of retreating from provisions of the welfare state, including early retirements and generous retirement pensions. A similar phenomenon is taking place among the states in the United States. There is a growing shift of wealth to the East as China, India, Singapore, and South Korea have expanded their economies at fast paces. Accompanying economic growth is population growth and a demand for more energy supplies, food, and water. The financial ability to eat richer diets drove up the price of food, metals, and fuels. Thus, there is a downside to the upside of economic growth when large numbers of people gain wealth; they then seek more and different types of food and goods, and they place increased strains on food and other supplies.
The economic success of a farmer in China enables him to replace his bicycle for delivery of goods to market with a motorcycle, cutting his delivery time but also using gasoline as part of a new driving force in the competition for oil. A young Indian learns English and computer technical skills and joins the global workforce as a competitor with similar persons in several parts of the world. There is no way to avoid these evolving events and no Luddites can roll back the clock. Globalization is here to stay and its effects will be long-lasting, especially regarding social welfare needs and services. These and other international forces form the background context for the United States and—in turn—influence what issues confront the United States and what social welfare can be.
Many parts of the world are also facing non-state actors such as international businesses, tribes, religious organizations, and criminal networks. The growth of aging populations is widespread. Also, there are groups of radical Islamists that contribute to economic and security instability. Poverty, although diminishing, remains a major problem, along with pollution, disease, hunger, and drug and people trafficking.
More directly, forces confronting the United States establish the national context within which social welfare must deal with problems and issues. The War on Terror continues and uses many billions of dollars; the price of oil continues to be problematic, which in turn raises the price of fertilizer, gasoline, and other goods and—in turn—creates shortages of food crops that are being used to replace gasoline. There is no short-range solution for the supply and cost of oil and gasoline, the lifeblood of our economy and civilization. Also, the major debts of the United States are held by the Chinese, Japanese, and other sovereign funds, and others who not only hold our IOUs but also buy into our economy. The housing bubble evolved into multitudes of foreclosures, delaying an economic recovery. Many people lost their homes, the major part of their wealth, while others grew rich. The gap between the lower and middle classes and the wealthy continues to widen.
The United States is slowly coming out of the Great Recession and unemployment remains above 9 percent; fiscal national annual deficits, when combined with record breaking national debt, are very serious problems facing the nation. There are projections that our nation has entered a period of slow economic growth where the competition for available funds becomes intense. Human services will have to compete for scarce funds
with all other societal needs. These contextual factors do not support attempts to deal with issues of poverty, education, and social problems in general, and, unfortunately, with the exception of the very costly Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act, it seems unlikely that in the foreseeable future the situation will become more supportive of efforts to improve social and human services. Do solidarity, national morale, and social justice require maintenance of these programs that help individuals and families take advantage of their opportunities? What will be the way forward? There are suggestions the economy will remain in low gear for more years. All of which suggests we have reached a time of scarce resources for social welfare and the likelihood of constrained incremental progress. What are the implications when the wealth created becomes less than the needs of the citizenry?
We have written a book with a point of view—one that examines social welfare issues critically, focusing on concepts and inviting challenge and alternative interpretations. We have striven to produce a usable textbook, one that covers detail and fact in an organized manner and that is useful for all those concerned with our society’s social welfare and human services. The success of our work can only be judged by individual readers, whom we hope will be challenged to reach their own conclusions about the issues discussed. We will have succeeded if readers attain knowledge and understanding to aid them in decision making both as professionals and as informed and inquiring citizens.
This revised edition reflects change in the social welfare system, our society, and our world since the last edition of this text. In addition to a complete updating, we have tried to anticipate issues and propose solutions to various social problems. Yet we have still maintained the main theme and focus on the impact of societal structure and change on the nature of people’s needs and problems and the search for social justice. In this edition we have added or augmented material on the following:
• Trends, data, and discussions are all up-to-date, including programs, income, poverty, wealth, demographics, and the several welfare systems.
• The Obama administration, the financial crisis, the effort to avoid a second Great Depression, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus).
• A Return to federalization: Ideology? Or pragmatism?
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare).
• Phases of implementation, issues, and financing.
• The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
• The Road Map for America: Ryan’s plans and other conservative plans for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
• Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and social justice.
• Children and the life effects of poverty and social justice.
• Elder abuse and social justice.
• Issues confronting social work and social welfare.
• The 2010 Social Work Congress.
• Leadership, multiculturalism, religion, and spirituality.
• Technologies, managed care, sufficient quantity of qualified social workers and other resources, and accountability.
• New trends in volunteering.
• Expanded description of legislati ve process within federalism, including incrementalism.
• Description and data regarding the latest social welfare legislation as well as potential future directions are incorporated.
• Explicit emphasis on human rights and social justice is included throughout.
• The concept of the social minimum, a standard for social justice.
• Various perspectives on social justice and descriptions and analysis of all programs have been updated.
• Emphasis throughout on the political and economic contexts for social welfare and the impact of social and economic structures and globalization and its effects.
• Counterintuitive statistics about wealth are considered.
• Intergenerational mobility is discussed.
• Equality of opportunity and stronger societies.
• Were the services for workers of Krupp Industries in mid-nineteenth century Germany the forerunners of social insurances?
• A number of new questions have been introduced for consideration by readers at the end of each chapter.
• The paths forward are examined from several perspectives.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to a number of persons whose reactions and advice have helped us to improve this book: Ana Alvarez, Aaron Dolgoff, Eliana Tretiak, William Jackson, Jr., Heejung Koh, Richard Larson, Margie Simon, Dr. Raju Varghese, Dr. Janice Wells, Dr. Donna Harrington, Dr. Howard Altstein, Rex Rempel, Linda Neuwirth, and Janice Wells. We also want to express our appreciation to the librarians of the Health and Human Services Library of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of the Johns Hopkins University.
Many people have contributed to the development of this book, including our reviewers: Michael J. Cappel, University of Louisiana, Monroe; Mark Cederburg, University of Kansas; George T. Patterson, Hunter College, City University of New York; and Cynthia J. Rocha, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We are appreciative of the support our families have provided. Special thanks are due to Sylvia Dolgoff, who has contributed in many ways. Finally, we want to express our deep appreciation to our students, whom we have taught and from whom we have learned.
To communicate with the authors, contact RDolgoff@ssw.umaryland.edu. We will respond to your comments as soon as possible.
About the Authors
Ralph Dolgoff is professor emeritus at the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where he also served as dean. Previously, he served as acting dean and associate dean at the Adelphi University School of Social Work, and as senior program specialist at the Council on Social Work Education. Dr. Dolgoff is the author of Introduction to Supervisory Practice in the Human Services and coauthor (with Frank Loewenberg and Donna Harrington) of Ethical Decisions for Social Work Practice (Ninth Edition). He has published widely on social and welfare services, ethics, social policy, and social work education.
Dr. Donald Feldstein is the former associate executive vice president of the Council of Jewish Federations. He has had a distinguished career in Jewish Communal Service and in social work education. He is the author of numerous monographs and articles in the previously mentioned fields.
Chapter 1
Socioeconomic Structure, Human Needs, and Mutual Responsibility
Competition . . . is a law of nature . . . . [I]f we try to amend it, there is only one way in which we can do it. We can take from the better and give to the worse. We can deflect the penalties of those who have done ill and throw them on those who have done better. We can take the rewards from those who have done better and give them to those who have done worse. We shall thus lessen the inequalities. We shall favor the survival of the unfittest, and we shall accomplish this by destroying liberty. Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative: liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest, not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest.
—William Graham Sumner1
Overview
Embedded in Sumner’s statement is a deep American belief: Those who have done well materially are better than those who have done not so well. Those who have prospered have done so because of their own individual talents and efforts. The corollary is that those who have not done well have done so because of some personal defect. They are immoral, lazy, unmotivated, or not so bright. Poor people, for example, are individually responsible for their poverty. According to this perspective, each person is responsible for his or her personal situation. The most important values are self-reliance and the avoidance of dependence. One should not be a burden to family, others, or—especially—society. Essentially, those who are disadvantaged, victimized, poor, or disabled somehow are responsible for their condition; if they were better or more adequate people, they would not be in a dependent position.
We begin this book by noting this perspective because it has had a profound and continuing impact on the nature of social welfare in the United States and has reemerged as a widespread force during the 1980s and 1990s. However, this emphasis on individual responsibility is not the only driving force in U.S. social welfare, which is influenced by a mixture of motives rather than one unified, impelling force. Altruism, a refusal to ignore the suffering of others, a sense of fairness, and a concern for mutual aid are also essential American values. Social welfare also functions to meet the maintenance needs of society by preventing instability and providing for social continuity. In part, one’s views of the functions of social welfare depend on one’s personal perspective, but in reality the U.S. social welfare scene is marked by ambivalent motivations rather than one pure and straightforward intention.
The values of a society, even implicit values, can influence the nature of its social welfare system. What are the roots and various manifestations of social welfare in U.S. society? What drives the American tendency to focus on individual responsibility as a major influence on social welfare policy? How are this and other values expressed in concepts of social welfare? And what are the biases of the authors that will inform this volume?
The Impact of Social and Economic Structures
Many Americans, including most students and practitioners in the helping professions, have been socialized to think in a certain way—primarily to understand case situations in individual, family, and group terms, often minimizing the effects of the multiple factors and levels of the social environment on human behaviors and lives.
In this book, in addition to individual responsibility and effort, we want to consider the impact of social and economic structures on us all. Although this approach is not completely explanatory, it does provide a contrasting view to the prevailing wisdom and offers other ways of understanding what happens to people. A child who is reared in a community which has a poor school system with few resources cannot be judged at fault when a quality education escapes him. Similarly, people seeking employment during the Great Recession are competing with many others. The failure to find work is not always the result of individual effort but is also related to the number of people in one’s generation who are seeking work, the nature of the economy, and the opportunities available. Textile workers in North Carolina when their jobs moved overseas could not be responsible when work opportunities in their towns became scarce.
The following studies illustrate that many social problems are associated with, influenced by, and even caused by social and economic structural factors:
1. Intimate partner violence and persistent poverty co-occur at high rates and limit coping options and have mental health consequences for those coping with both. The stress, powerlessness, and social isolation at the heart of both phenomena combine to produce post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and other emotional difficulties.2
2. Forty heads of household with school-age children who lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina were interviewed about their pre- and post-Katrina life as hurricane survivors. It was found they had experienced multiple negative life events linked to their poverty status even prior to the hurricane. Their negative life events included social isolation and physical and mental health problems, high debt or financial insecurity, dangerous neighborhoods, witnessing violence and early deaths, child abuse, being incarcerated or observing incarceration, and teen pregnancy.3
3. When children grow up in poverty, they are more likely as adults to have low earnings, which in turn reflect low productivity in the workforce. They are also more likely to engage in crime and to have poor health later in life. Their reduced productive activity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy. Any crimes they commit impose large monetary and other personal costs on their victims and on taxpayers who pay for the criminal justice system. Their poor health generates illness and early mortality that require large health expenditures, impede productivity, and reduce their quality and quantity of life. The statistical relationships between growing up in poverty and later earnings, as well as productivity, plus estimates of the costs of crime and poor health per person were aggregated across the total number of children growing up in poverty. The results suggested that the costs associated with childhood poverty total about $500 billion per year: Productivity and economic output are reduced by about 1.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); the costs of crime are increased by 1.3 percent of GDP; and health expenditures are increased by 1.2 percent of GDP.4 But, the high dollar costs of eliminating child poverty will not by themselves change the situation. The poverty situation of children cannot be understood or changed without changes in behaviors, neighborhoods, and parents’ actions.5
4. Families of children with disabilities face elevated costs of caregiving, insufficient support from income transfer programs to offset the additional costs, and parental employment severely limited by child care and leave policies. Young children with disabilities are significantly more likely to live in poverty than their peers without disabilities. Living in poverty is associated with consequences such as poor physical health, diminished cognitive abilities, emotional and behavioral problems, and reduced educational attainment. Ill health is overrepresented in low-income families. Children in low-income families are twice as likely to die before age 15 as children in families from the professional social class. Perinatal and postnatal mortality rates, birth weight, height, dental health, respiratory illnesses, traffic accidents, and deaths from fire are all related negatively to income and social class. These problems are compounded among families receiving public assistance. Half the families on California public assistance with special needs children had both out-ofpocket expenses and foregone earnings. These are substantial burdens for many low-income families with special-needs children.6
Cascading Effects
Disadvantages can cascade, that is one problem can lead to another or in some cases to many. Lin and Harris (2008) report that “difficult but solvable problems—the lack of dependable food, clothing, or shelter; the inability to control oneself; the presence of a disruptive peer group; a home environment that does not or cannot support learning— exacerbate and are exacerbated by other disadvantages.” Further, they suggest multiple disadvantages exist, even solutions can intensify the problems. For example, giving a child extra help at school, paradoxically, can reinforce his parents’, his teachers’, and his own belief that he is bad or incapable.7
Unemployment and poverty are inextricably tied to the structure of the economy. Among these structural factors are a shift from a goods-producing, manufacturing economy to service-producing industries; the polarization of the labor market into low-wage and high-wage sectors; increasing technology; and the dispersal of manufacturing and other jobs to suburban and overseas locations. Although these structural factors—such as the nature of the job market, the job preparation of potential workers, geographic factors,
and racial and other types of discrimination—affect everyone in our society, their impact is differential on different groups, as we shall see in more detail in Chapter 8.8 For example, the structure of jobs and wages has changed. Many industries require more able and highly skilled workers. Such workers are generally in short supply, bidding up their wages and increasing the gap between their incomes and those of workers with lower educational levels and skills.
Poverty in the United States has become more urban, spatially concentrated, and clustered with other indicators of disadvantage. The residents of neighborhoods of concentrated poverty who experience multiple forms of social and economic disadvantage are disproportionately members of minority groups. Changes in the wage structure over the past several decades have impacted negatively on noncollege-educated minorities living in inner cities. Declining real wages overall, rising inequality in wage and income distribution, and growing numbers of low-wage jobs have been accompanied by an increase in joblessness, especially among black minority youth in cities.9
We will return to these issues and concepts in later chapters. For now we need to recognize the impact of structural factors such as business cycles; the shifts in the number, types, and degrees of skilled labor required by various industries; international trade and competition; and technologic al change. Additional significant factors are discrimination, immigration, changes in the age and educational composition of the work force, and unionization or the lack of it, as well as changes in the political climate. 10
Defining Social Welfare and Social Work
Social welfare is referred to throughout this book. What is social welfare, and what do we mean by this term? The definition is not simple and is discussed at some length at the beginning of Chapter 6. But the reader is entitled to a brief definition early on. For reasons explained in Chapter 6, we define social welfare as follows: all social interventions intended to enhance or maintain the social functioning of human beings. We limit our consideration, however, to the broadest parts of the social welfare system that are not clearly the domain or territory of other fields or disciplines such as education, police, and fire services.
Social work is discussed in Chapters 12 and 13, where the emergence of the profession, its current functions, the context within which it operates, and other selected issues are examined. At this point, however, it is important that the reader understand that social work is a professional occupation that delivers social welfare services.11 Although social workers serve preponderantly in the societal social welfare institution, they also deliver services in a large number of societal institutions that are not within the social welfare institution per se, including business and industry, the military, and criminal justice, as well as educational, health, and religious institutions, among others. The reader should keep this distinction in mind, differentiating the societal institution of social welfare from the profession of social work.
Our aim in this book is to examine U.S. social welfare and social work. We are mindful of the interconnections and interdependence of U.S. society, in all its aspects, with other parts of the world. The United States in contemporary times is affected by developments in many nations and regions far from our shores. Although the world is a series of societal and ecological interconnections, and these systemic relationships
impact on the U.S. economy and general culture—including social welfare, both directly and indirectly—our priority focus will be social welfare and social work within the U.S. context.
The American Myth of the Hero
For more than five centuries people have come to America: the secular Zion, the golden nation, the land of possibilities. Leaving behind families, traditions, and the familiar, people set out for America. Although we note these migrations to a land of dangers and dreams, there was—of course—a major exception. In the case of African Americans, they were forcibly taken to this land.
From the Puritans seeking religious freedom in Massachusetts to the debtors escaping imprisonment in Georgia, the earliest American settlers were a mixture of indentured persons, craft workers, paupers, businesspeople, sailors, artisans, and adventurers. They were seeking to escape, and they were searching for new horizons beyond the ocean and beyond the constraints of more developed societies.
The pioneers were seen as rugged indi vidualists, self-reliant and independent. The reality was quite different from the myth. A communitarian spirit was needed in frontier territories and pioneering times. Settlements developed, and people became interdependent.
There were, of course, courageous lone explorers and travelers but, essentially, the movement of people from the Atlantic seaboard to the Appalachian mountains and then gradually across the continent had to be accomplished in groups. Individualism was valued but the building of communities required help from family and fellow travelers. Groups were needed for protection, to include helpful skills, and to fulfill daily chores from hunting, trapping, and farming to wagon wheel repair to law enforcement to health care to the care of children, all the requirements for survival and community building.
Even the early U.S. government aided the individual with mechanisms similar to those used today. Puritan communities paid a salaried town doctor in a sort of community-supported medicine. New Englanders attempted to regulate wages, prices, and interest rates. Laws were passed to ensure the quality of workmanship and goods. Public officials scrutinized the regulation of weights and measures, as well as ferries, mills, and inns.12 In fact, the government during early U.S. history played an affirmative role in the economy in regard to credit, a national bank, currency and coinage, public lands, and other matters. During Jefferson’s first administration, the Cumberland National Road linked the eastern seaboard with the Ohio Valley. The government also owned stock in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company, as well as in the Dismal Swamp Company of Virginia and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. These governmental interventions had many purposes, chief among them the encouragement of travel and trade.13
The complexity and specialization of modern society make interdependence greater and more necessary than ever. Each of us can perform only a small fraction of the functions necessary to help ourselves and society to survive. The astronauts are heroic figures even while they are excellent symbols of the necessary interdependence of “heroes.” They need each other’s skill s; they are dependent on teams of scientists and technicians. Even so, we are left with Americans still idealizing images of the selfsufficient hero.
The American idealized myth includes the following:
1. The best people are rugged individualists who are physically strong, psychologically independent, and able to flourish without help.
2. “Making it” is what counts and is to be respected and admired.
3. Everything is possible. Those who try hard enough, no matter how humble their beginnings, can “make it.”
4. Humans strive for material gain. If it were not for the carrot of material gain or the stick of hunger and deprivation, motivation for work might disappear. Other motives are shadowy, unreal, or idealistic.
5. The corollary of all the above is that those who fail to “make it” are at least incompetent, and perhaps even lazy and immoral (synonyms).
Although the entire mythology has created some of the strains in American life, it is this final corollary that places personal responsibility and independence at the heart of American values. Somehow, if things do not go well or if one fails, then one is to blame. Although other cultures have extolled ambition and progress, it is the combination of this striving philosophy with the corollary that people determine both their successes and failures that make American society particularly unusual. However, the mythology does not find complete acceptance, and at different periods it is stronger or weaker. For example, during the Great Depression of the 1930s people felt simultaneously that they were inadequate but also that the social system had failed them.14 The tension between individualistic and communitarian values creates simultaneous trends away from and toward this American mythology. These trends, discussed in Chapter 14, continue to have profound effects on life in the United States, particularly regarding social welfare.
But, the emphasis on the individual has, from early in the United States, been modified and balanced by a community value. An astute observer of American life, Alexis DeTocqueville, suggested early on that:
as soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world, they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as they have found one another out, they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated men . . . The Americans have combated by free institutions the tendency of equality to keep men asunder, and they have subdued it.15
According to the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, the idea of a constant frontier is central to the American spirit, and it was only in the last decade of the nineteenth century that the frontier was officially declared closed. Illustrative of this idea was the young and vigorous Kennedy national administration that in 1960 named its program “The New Frontier.” The idea of a constant frontier remains potent within the United States in several forms: the reach to fulfill the American dream, to fulfill the potential of the nation and all its citizens, to explore space, to develop the contributions of science and technology for human betterment, and to create throughout our urban centers, suburbs, and rural areas “user-friendly” habitats for all citizens. However, even where agreement exists as to the goals, as we shall see later, intense disagreement fuels debate about how to achieve these goals.
Intellectual, scientific, and religious currents have all fed this mythology. In Chapter 2 we discuss the relationship between the views of human nature in any society and its welfare approach and programs. In the United States such views have been influenced by the ideology of industrialism, the development of the Protestant ethic (particularly the Calvinist
strain), and social Darwinism, each contributing to our placing priority on individual responsibility.
Industrialism encouraged mobility, material gain, and competition, resulting in the amassing of capital, which was frowned on in more traditional Christian theology. Industrialism demanded a large pool of low-paid workers and drove people from their traditional homes and pursuits to cities. Religion and science generated a rationale and justification for these developments. Additional support came from economics and evolutionary theory. The theories of laissez-faire capitalism suggested that society functions best and that the common good is furthered most when there is constrained governmental interference in the affairs of the market. The market is a grand anonymous stage in which each commodity finds its own value. If labor is underpaid, this reflects its market value. Any attempt to interfere by regulation lessens the ultimate benefit to society.16 Social scientists went further. They took the ideas of natural selection developed by Charles Darwin and created a social equivalent. The theory of natural selection, most simply stated, is that in nature the most fit survive and the least fit die. Similarly, according to this view, in society, in the free market (nature), there is a natural tendency for the best (most fit) to succeed, and any attempt to interfere with this “natural selection” only perpetuates and gives favor to those who can contribute least.
According to these views, social welfare measures, which help the weak, only weaken society. The kindest approach, in the long run, is to let the weak fail. Laissez-faire philosophers acknowledged the value of charity, but more to foster uplifting the soul of the philanthropist than for aiding the victim. President Herbert Hoover claimed that enterprise builds society while charity builds character.
All of these ideas and forces had their impact in shaping the American myth. They were particularly functional to a young, vigorous, and expanding country whose growth left many casualties, from the indigenous Native Americans to enslaved African Americans, as well as the working poor and the waves of immigrants in each generation.
It is not our intent here to try to counter the arguments of these philosophies. They are discussed further in Chapters 2 and 3. Many Americans reject them on face value, but many others believe them. It is suggested that we live in a welfare society, and “they” are expected to be able to do something about our social problems, finding approval in some quarters and indignation in others. Most Americans believe the destitute should be helped. But so deep and pervasive in the American psyche is the philosophy of individual responsibility and competition17 that we still find ourselves, in many overt and subtle ways, repeating the patterns that belong to ideologies many have long since rejected. Many others believe these ideologies are true and best for each of us and for the nation.
Balancing Individual and Societal Responsibilities
An overemphasis on individual causation (personal troubles are mainly a result of personal failures) can be harmful; similarly refusing to recognize “public issues” that must be dealt with can be equally destructive. Some forces are beyond the control or influence of any individual. Nonetheless, an emphasis on personal responsibility for one’s situation regardless of the context and structural factors in society is very much alive and very much with us. In fact, this deeply ingrained value judgment and perception is rather ubiquitous and is found often where least expected. For example, Peggy Say, the sister of Terry A. Anderson, who had been snatched off the streets of Beirut and held captive in Lebanon for many years, reported, “I won’t tell him of the accusation that ‘he shouldn’t have been there in the first place.’”18 Every important social problem—crime, mental illness, civil disorder,
unemployment, child abuse, health care, slum housing—has been analyzed within the framework of the responsibility of the individual. Those who experience the problem are poorly motivated, lack information, have the wrong characteristics, have poor judgment, or are not acculturated.
What are some of the reasons we shift responsibility from community and society entirely to the individual? To do so serves certain purposes. It makes us feel superior; it allows us to express our hostilities toward relatively safe objects. It also separates and distances us from those in need and allows us subtly to defend the status quo in regard to the poor.
The sector of the economy, the degree of unionization, the geographic part of the country one resides in—all these and other factors, as we shall see in greater detail in Chapter 8— affect one’s well-being. Events in distant locations can have enormous implications for persons and families, events over which, in this interdependent world, we often have little, if any, control.
Human Rights, Social Justice, Social Work, and Social Welfare
According to the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the primary mission of the social work profession is “to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.”
The mission is based in a set of core values integral to the practice of social work. Among these values is social justice, a value expressed through this ethical principle: Social workers challenge social injustice. The code understands social injustice as being reflected in social conditions:
Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers’ social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice.
The social justice value and its underlying ethical principle are further developed in the code’s ethical standards:
Social workers should promote the general welfare of society, from local to global levels, and the development of people, their communities, and their environments. Social workers should advocate for living conditions conducive to the fulfillment of basic human needs and should promote social, economic, political, and cultural values and institutions that are compatible with the realization of social justice. (Code, 6.01)
Social workers should engage in social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully. (Code, 6.04)
At first glance, the concept of social justice seems simple, easily grasped, and readily apparent to all persons, finding broad agreement. But is it? There is no one agreed-on definition of social justice. What is social justice? What is the “general welfare” of society and how is it measured? To whom is primary responsibility owed? When a resource is in short supply and cannot be provided to every needy person, how does one choose recipients? How can one choose among several disadvantaged groups? To what extent
should one group be deprived so that the general society is better off at least to a certain degree? Under what circumstances can global needs take priority over the needs of the local community? What are the basic human needs, and how does one know when they are fulfilled?19
A simple answer to all these questions might follow jazz great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong’s approach. When he was asked by a young woman to explain jazz music, he responded: “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them,” thus suggesting that one has to find the concept apparent at first view; otherwise, one won’t ever get it. Using the Armstrong method, Miller described social justice as “how the good and bad things in life should be distributed among the members of a human society.” When a policy or state of affairs is attacked, critics are “claiming that a person or a category of people enjoys fewer advantages than they ought to enjoy (or bears more of the burdens than they ought to bear) given how other members of the society in question are faring.”20
Beliefs about Social Justice
Some people concerned with social justice hold that historical inequities, insofar as they affect current injustice, should be corrected so that actual inequities no longer exist. There should be a redistribution of wealth, power, and status for the good of individuals, communities, and society. It is the government’s responsibility (or those who hold sufficient power) to ensure a basic quality of life for all citizens. On the other hand, critics may believe that to favor one group over another is inherently unjust. Those who are successful according to the standards of the society should not be penalized by being compelled to support those who are not. Personal liberty is more important than government social policies (an idea shared by many supporters of social justice). Social justice is expensive social engineering that can only fail or create additional and different problems.21
There may be consensus (more or less) among social workers as to the meaning of social justice. Nevertheless, people’s assumptions and views about social justice can differ, as we’ve seen. Consequently, there may be agreement about the term social justice at a high level of generality, but what happens when we begin to examine the term more closely and from different perspectives?
Indeed, there are divisions in American society about values—among other issues— concerning euthanasia, the right to die, human cloning, abortion, same-sex marriage, and the respective responsibilities of individuals, families, and governments. In addition, immigrant, racial, generational, religious, sexual orientation, and ethnic and cultural groups, among others, can clash over values.
Should society sit by when people are starving in our nation? What if it is not a question of starvation but of a nutritionally adequate diet? Is everyone entitled to a decent minimum of health care? What is a decent minimum of health care? Should all citizens be helped to meet their basic needs? What are the basic needs of people? What about illegal immigrants? Should their needs be met? What about criminals and those who have harmed other people? What is a decent minimally adequate standard of living?
The Social Minimum: The Standard for Social Justice
Those persons trying to understand the concept of social justice can disagree about what constitutes the social minimum . What is the exact nature of a social minimum? What assumptions and rationale support the idea of a social minimum? What justifications can
be offered to support the enactment of a social minimum in a society? All these questions are the subject of debate and argument, and the answers one provides depend on many factors, including values.
White defined a social minimum as “that bundle of resources in the circumstances of a given society which enable someone to lead a minimally decent life.” 22 What is the nature of that “bundle,” and what is a “minimally decent life”? Second, what policies and institutions can serve to secure reasonable access to this social minimum for all members of society?
One way of approaching these questions is to identify a set of necessary human capabilities and activities. Nussbaum, among others, believed we can identify a set of vital activities so critical that they define a life which is truly human. She defined the following capabilities or activities as those that are central to human functioning in the world:
Life. Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one’s life is so reduced as to be not worth living.
Bodily Health. Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter.
Bodily Integrity. Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction.
Senses, Imagination, and Thought. Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason, and to do these things in a “truly human” way, a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education.
Emotions. Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger.
Practical Reason. Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life. This entails protection for the liberty of conscience.
Affiliation. Being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other human beings, to engage in various forms of social interaction. Having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. This entails protections against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, caste, ethnicity, or national origin. The capability for love and friendship.
Other Species. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature.
Play. Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities.
Control Over One’s Environment. Political. Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association. Material. Being able to hold property (both land and movable goods); having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others; having the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure.23
The point of the suggested list is to create a list that people from many different traditions, with many different and fuller conceptions of the “good,” can agree on as the necessary basis for pursuing a good life. The list is deliberately general but refers to a life comprising full human functioning and whose human dignity is not violated by hunger,
fear, or the absence of opportunity. According to Nussbaum, these attributes deserve the same social protection that rights such as political participation and equal employment receive.
No list such as Nussbaum’s can avoid disagreement. There are many such lists, and there are frequent value differences among them. For example, Doyal and Gough include in their list of needs security in childhood and safe childbearing (the lowest possible maternal and infant mortality rate).24 In regard to Nussbaum’s list, does being human really require “the capability for connection with nature and other species”? Must you have some sense of connection with animals or a sense of wonder when standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon to be considered fully human? One can quibble over such matters, but the establishment of a list helps us to better understand and consider what social justice might be.
However, another serious issue has to be considered regarding the social minimum. The “bundle of resources” that makes a life human—a minimal standard of living or the social minimum—is defined by the circumstances of a person’s society. To what extent is the social minimum dependent on the general standards of living in one’s society? Does this mean the social minimum in a wealthy society should be higher than in poorer societies? Is poverty a matter of absolute or relative income or wealth? What if a poor person’s income remains constant with inflation but the incomes and wealth of those more well-off are moving ahead by leaps and bounds? As the reader will see in Chapter 8, wealth inequality is large and increasing with a growing concentration of wealth at the top income levels. It has been suggested that the poor are better off in the United States than in many other nations. If that is true, what does criticism of the growing gap in income and wealth between those who are wealthy and those who are poorer imply? Does this represent confusion between poverty and inequality or an unacknowledged assumption about inequality in general?
Leading a life without shame with a social minimum in any society is related to one’s self-respect and sense of dignity. Self-respect depends on a person’s ability to maintain a lifestyle that is sufficiently similar to his or her fellow citizens and that enables him or her to participate in the life of his or her community. From this perspective, disabled persons and families with children need more and poor families should be able to afford transportation, appropriate clothing, and family vacations, among other resources. Poorer persons look inferior, and start to feel inferior, if they do not share the common experiences of their society. One view is that it is crucial for families to have access to experiences common to their neighbors, rather than money alone.25 A social minimum for income and wealth will be examined in some detail in Chapter 7. In a society such as ours—the wealthiest in the world—what should the social minimum be?
The NASW Standard: Equal Access and Rights
The NASW standard cited earlier (6.04) suggested that social justice is achieved when “all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully.” Kallen approached this issue from a human rights perspective and distilled from international human rights documents a threefold theme: (1) The right of all human beings to participate in the shaping of decisions affecting themselves and the broader society (freedom to decide); (2) reasonable access to the economic resources that make participation possible (equality/equity of opportunity); and (3) affirmation of the essential human worth and dignity of every person, regardless of individual qualities and/or group membership (dignity of person).26
Toward the Social Minimum
In our society today, many disparities and contradictions hamper the achievement of the rights cited previously and the attainment by all of a social minimum. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution suggests, among other activities, that we are to “promote the general welfare” of all citizens. Yet in regard to the achievement of a broader general welfare, many in our society lack resources. For example, our educational systems leave much to be desired; racial, gender, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, and other prejudices and discrimination continue; many persons lack access to health care; issues exist about labor fairness; there are problems regarding violence and safety, as well as child, domestic, and elder abuse; voting rights have come under attack in recent elections; unemployment leaves many without productive employment; many go without sufficient and appropriate housing; some citizens do live in toxic environments; and there are many who although conscientious and determined still lack sufficient income for their families, while “the richest are leaving even the rich far behind.”
Equality of Opportunity
Equality of opportunity plays an important part in the search for distributive justice, the allocation of the benefits and burdens of economic activity. The central question is, Under what conditions is the distribution of liberties, opportunities, and goods that society makes available to persons just or morally fair? The distribution is just and fair if it satisfies the norm of equality of opportunity. This requires that unchosen inequalities (matters imposed on an individual in ways that he could not have influenced or controlled) be eliminated and that inequalities that arise from choices of individuals given equal initial conditions and a fair framework for interaction should not be eliminated or reduced. This is the concept of a “level playing field.” Justice requires leveling the playing field by making everyone’s opportunities equal and then letting individual choices and their effects dictate further outcomes.27 The ideal is a society in which people do not suffer disadvantage from discrimination on grounds such as race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. One can understand this ideal as morally right in and of itself. Or, one can understand that excluding persons, for example, women from the labor force makes markets function less efficiently and can result in the loss of valuable talents socially and economically.
The equality of opportunity is key. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, British public health researchers, found that greater equality makes societies stronger. 28 They suggest that it has long been known that poor health and violence are more common in more unequal societies. However, they studied internationally other social problems and found they were more common in more unequal societies. The list included: level of trust, mental illness (including drug and alcohol addiction), life expectancy and infant mortality, obesity, children’s educational performance, teenage births, homicides, imprisonment rates, and social mobility (not included for the United States). For example, inequality is associated with lower life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, poor self-reported health, low birthweight, AIDS, and depression (2009). Social mobility (moving up or down the social ladder) is lower in more unequal countries. Homicides are more common in more unequal societies. Among the nations studied were Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Views of Social Welfare
As we proceed in this book, the reader will see that there are many different assumptions and perspectives about social welfare—what it is and what it should be in a society. Is the role of social welfare to be limited to dealing with the dysfunctions of a free (laissez-faire) economy, or is it to work toward social justice and equity and a sense of fair play within a relatively free market economy? As we shall see, there are essentially two basic positions that will be explored in greater depth in later chapters. The first view, which has gained in popularity over the past few decades, suggests the market is good for almost everything and most problems can be better solved by market mechanisms than through governmental actions. In this view, there should be a minimum of government intervention. Individuals and families should have a high degree of resp onsibility for themselves. When individuals and families cannot deal with their problems, there should be limited state intervention. However, close observation of those who publicly espouse this ideology often reveals that they do believe in government intervention when it serves their purposes.
The second point of view suggests government has a role to play when there is a need for it. The question concerns when the need arises. This perspective is exemplified by Lester Ward (American sociologist) and by John Stuart Mill (English philosopher). Ward suggested that without constraints, liberty and happiness are impossible. True individualism seeks to maximize personal liberty but to do so requires some governmental restraints;29 laissez-faire at the extreme is incoherent and futile. Quoting Mill, Goodin stated:
Energy and self-dependence are . . . liable to be impaired by the absence of help, as well as by its excess. It is even more fatal to exertion to have no hope of succeeding by it, than to be assured of succeeding without it. When the condition of anyone is so disastrous that his energies are paralyzed by discouragement, assistance is a tonic, not a sedative.30
In succeeding chapters, the reader can follow the development of social welfare, including who enjoys advantages and who carries undue burdens, and how the social justice theme has played out over the centuries. In Chapter 7, we will return to an examination of the reasons and arguments in favor of a social minimum by persons representing different philosophical points of view. We also will introduce in that chapter the arguments against a social minimum. The reader will be asked to decide then whether a social minimum is justified and, if so, what it should be. Finally, in Chapter 15, we will examine in detail several issues concerning social justice: children and the effects of poverty; veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan; elder abuse; globalization, privatization, socially just services, and the future of social welfare; and the baby boom generation and the choices before us.
The Authors’ Perspective
The reader deserves to know something more about the biases of the authors. We move from multiple perspectives:
1. Many problems faced by people in our society are largely caused by the institutional structure of society and not by people’s own inadequacies or actions.
2. Although societal structures impact on individuals, people ultimately are responsible for their actions and behavior, if not for their fates. There is free will within the boundaries of the opportunities available, boundaries that are defined by both objective and subjective realities.
