Policy, public policy, social welfare and social welfare policy
- Midgley argues that an understanding of the meaning of social policy requires an understanding of the meaning of social welfare.
He defines social welfare as a condition or state of human well-being that exists when peoples’ needs are met, problems are managed, and opportunities are maximized.
He contrasts this with what he refers to as “social illfare” – the opposite of social welfare.
o Social illfare exists when human needs are not met, when social problems are not effectively managed, and when there are very limited opportunities for improving life chances.
- Midgley further argues that this broad definition of social welfare is in contrast with many standard definitions.
Conventional definitions of social welfare describe it as a range of services provided by charities and government social services agencies to poor, needy, and vulnerable people.
This conventional meaning of the term implies that only particularly unfortunate or needy people have welfare needs that should be addressed by charitable organizations and public welfare departments.[unique_solution]
It fails to capture the original significance of the term, which defines social welfare in a positive way, stressing the importance of well-being for all people and for society as a whole
- Midgley describes policies are courses of action adopted by formal organizations. They prescribe, govern, and routinize the activities of formal organizations.
By prescribing courses of action, policies standardize decision making, enhance organizational efficiency, and help organizations achieve their goals.
- Policies formulated and implemented by governments are known as public policies.
They are used by governments to deal with major issues that affect a country’s social, economic, environmental, and political affairs.
Policies designed to maintain law and order, ensure national defense, promote economic development, protect the environment, foster communications, and control urban growth are just some examples of the way governments prescribe courses of action, routinize
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their activities, and meet their goals. In addition, they have adopted policies designed to enhance the welfare of their citizens.
- Policies designed to enhance peoples’ welfare or well-being are known as social policies.
These policies are concerned with many aspects of social welfare, including health, housing, education, income, and nutrition, to name but a few.
Social policies have also been formulated to meet the needs of groups of people such as needy children, people with disabilities, low-income families, and elderly people.
Some social policies govern particular social service programs while others operate in more complex ways through the tax system, directing resources toward particular groups of people.
- Although government social policies make an important contribution to the well-being of the country’s citizens, the welfare of the population is not only determined by government policies.
Many other activities and circumstances also affect social well-being, including the income people derive from employment; their educational achievements; the support they receive from family members, friends, and neighbors; the services provided by nonprofit and religious organizations; local events in the communities in which people live; the state of the economy; and a host of other factors.
However, government social policies are particularly important because they are intended to improve the well-being of people today and they mobilize sizable resources to achieve this goal.
- Given their focus on social welfare and social policy in the context of the social work profession, Karger and Stoesz, and Dolgoff and Feldstein, are concerned with the relationship between social welfare as it is expressed in public policy and social work as it is practiced in the United States.
In this course we will follow their lead to be ultimately concerned with the impact of policy on:
o The profession of social work;
o Social workers in pursuit of their professional practice; and, o The recipients of the services provided by social workers.
- As Midgley infers, there is confusion regarding the meaning of the words “social welfare.”
The tendency is to limit the meaning to certain programs such as TANF and SNAP.
- In a broad conceptualization that diverges somewhat from that of Midgley, Dolgoff and Feldstein say that social welfare should be described as a nation’s system of programs, benefits, and services that help people meet those social, economic, educational, health needs that are fundamental to the maintenance of society.
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This should include policies and programs that benefit “middle-class” citizens as well as poor people.
- This broad conceptualization of social welfare includes activities by voluntary (nonprofit), for-profit, and governmental programs, utilizing a wide variety of professional personnel such as social workers, physicians, nurses, lawyers, educators, ministers, and others, including family members.
- This conceptualization also takes into account the needs of modern industrial societies and those of their individual citizens, families, neighborhoods and communities.
- As a result, as we will see in this course, it is frequently hard to distinguish social welfare policy from national economic, labor or other areas of policy.
For instance, shouldn’t governmental efforts to keep mortgage interest rates low for middle-class families be considered social welfare policy?
Don’t government guarantees of loans for college students – most frequently from middle-class white families – represent a social welfare policy?
- Midgley’s and Dolgoff and Feldstein’s conceptualization of social welfare also acknowledges the blurring of lines between private and public responsibility for social welfare that is common in the U.S.
The private sector plays a growing role in defining social policy, delivering social services and changing the face of the American welfare state.
o This doesn’t just include the historically large role played by private charitable organizations.
o Increasingly it also includes private profit making organizations that provide services in health care, elder services and other important areas of public welfare policy.
- Karger and Stoesz confuse matters vis a vis Midgley, et. al somewhat when they describe “social welfare policy” as a subset of social policy, that regulates the provision of benefits to people to meet basic life needs, such as employment, income, food, housing, health care, and relationships.
In this course our sources tend to use the terms “social welfare policy” and “social policy” interchangeably.
- Even these broad definitions do not consider all factors involved in social welfare:
They tend to focus on formal organizational arrangements and do not adequately consider other informal arrangements:
o Natural helping systems such neighbors helping neighbors.
o Members of formal organizations, such as police departments or public schools, that perform socially valuable tasks beyond their formal duties.
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The sophisticated student of social welfare should understand that it is an ambiguous, changing, and blurred concept.
- We also should take to heart Abramovitz’s arguments regarding what social welfare really is:
As we saw in the bailout of Wall Street during the great recession when many billions of dollars of assistance were provided to American corporations, it is clear that far and away the biggest commitment of public resources to welfare takes the form of corporate welfare and tax advantages enjoyed by the wealthiest Americans.
o This is not a new phenomenon – corporations and wealthy individuals have received tax breaks and other direct and indirect government financial benefits for a long time.
Middle class families – through mortgage loan interest deductions, college savings deductions, health savings account deductions and other tax and non-tax benefits – also can be viewed as receiving more public “welfare” support than do the poor.
Social policy as process and product
- As we see in the Dye model and other sources, like other areas of public policy, social policy is both the process and product of developing policies and programs.
- By process we mean the elements of policy making described by Dye:
Policy as process involves the making of policy ranging from the emergence of policy ideas to the determination of beneficiaries and the amounts and methods of benefits.
o In the American federal system, an important component of policy process often involves the translation of national policy into programmatic action by the states.
o Importantly for you, the policy process also includes actions of “street-level bureaucrats” such as social workers.
o This involves the implementation of policies by frontline public workers who deliver the products of national and state policies to their intended beneficiaries.
o The “true” meaning of policies only emerges when they are implemented by street-level bureaucrats.
- By product we mean the social programs, services, and related activities that public and private organizations provide to those in need of assistance.
- In this course we consider the historic, cultural, political, economic, and social work practice factors that drive the translation of the American version of social welfare into social policy and then into the work performed by social workers.
- Although social policy includes the private for-profit and nonprofit sectors, in this course we primarily focus on actions made in the public sector by governments.
When we consider private social welfare activities they are usually pursued within the context of public policy areas and the implementation of policy created by national, state, and local governments.
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- Social policy is not just made in relation to the agencies and services that we think of as doing social work – the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the Maryland Department of Social Services, for example.
Social policy is also made by other public organizational entities:
o The U.S. Department of Defense deals with a wide variety of social service issues for service members and their families.
o The U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs deals with many social service issues faced by veterans and their dependents.
o The Internal Revenue Service plays a critical role in the implementation of many social welfare policies.
o State and local corrections departments are among the largest social service providers in the U.S., particularly in areas such as mental health and substance abuse treatment service provision.
- Social policy does not just emerge in visible ways through new pieces of legislation or new agencies providing new services.
- It represents an almost invisible accumulation of history, values and practices that pre-date the establishment of the United States.
For instance, it reflects societal and political attitudes toward poverty, the poor, “worthiness” for public assistance and the importance of work that go back centuries to the European forebears of America’s public institutions and law.
- Policy also emerges from daily social work practice and informal and formal interaction among social workers.
Through the exercise of discretion in doing their jobs, attendance at staff meetings or at professional training sessions, social workers, through the doing of their jobs and learning how others do their jobs, slowly but surely contribute to cumulative social policy.
- We will heavily emphasize the contextual and/or structural factors that drive the need for social intervention in the United States and impact the forms that social intervention takes.
What do we mean by “structural factors” that influence social policy?
- Structural factors involve the way society is organized.
- Important structural factors in the United States include our capitalist market economy and our federalist form of government.
- The capitalist market economy is important because it produces winners and losers.
Economic losers, or those who don’t possess the opportunity or capability to compete effectively in the American version of capitalism, may need the assistance of the social welfare system for income maintenance, housing, food, medical services, energy assistance and other needs.
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- The capitalist market economy also impacts the way social welfare services are produced and delivered in this country.
There is great political pressure to find private – through for-profit and nonprofit organizations – rather than governmental solutions to social welfare problems.
Private employers make large investments in social services – particularly through health, retirement and family benefits provided to employees.
- Our federal system of government is important because it impacts the way social welfare is produced and delivered in the U.S.
Policies developed in Washington are often implemented by state governments. Individual states also create social policies.
The resultant complex – and often confusing – federal and state division of labor results in efficiencies and inefficiencies in the way social welfare goods and services are provided in this country.
Political economy perspective
- Karger and Stoesz emphasize that understanding social welfare policy in the U.S. requires understanding the interactions of political and economic institutions of this country.
- This means understanding what is referred to as our “political economy.”
We will refer to this term throughout the course.
“Political economy” refers to the dynamic interaction of the public and private economic processes and structures of the nation.
- From the perspective of political economy, in the United States social welfare policy modifies the operation of market forces and moderates the social and economic inequalities that the capitalist market generates.
To this end, two sets of activities are necessary:
o Governmental provision of social services, including benefits of cash, in-kind benefits, and personal social services; and,
o Governmental regulation of private activities to alter the lives of citizens.
Thus, social welfare bolsters capitalist ideology by helping to remedy the problems associated with economic dislocation, thereby allowing society to remain in a state of more or less controlled balance.
- As a result, according to Karger and Stoesz’s terms, social welfare policy is not just the product of altruistic impulses to do social “good:”
It plays a practical role in maintaining societal stability by responding to the ups and downs associated with the functioning of the market economy.
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For instance, during recessions, social welfare policy results in public funds flowing into
the economy through unemployment insurance payments to help stimulate economic activity.
o This was seen during the great recession when social welfare policies and programs such as unemployment insurance and expanded SNAP benefits contributed to economic and social stability to help to make recovery possible.
- As we consider social welfare policy in this country we have to take care to consider the complex and subtle interaction of policy development in other realms with social policy and programming.
Thus, the push to find private sector solutions has impacted the way that social work is done.
The emergence of managed care as private – and, effectively, public policy – has impacted the way that social workers in private practice do their work.
Social welfare policy as a product of a two-layered zero-sum game:
- Crumpton argues that social policy is an area of policy that is well-suited for the application of zero-sum game
- Zero-sum game analysis is based on the assumption that there are finite public resources (primarily financial resources) available to apply across all policy domains.
It is further assumed that an increase in resources invested in one policy areas will result in fewer resources invested in other policy areas.
- Crumpton further argues that social policy should be considered in terms of a two-layer zero-sum game.
In the first zero-sum layer, social policy is considered among all areas of national policy.
o Social policy is a component of a policy game involving defense, transportation, trade and other policy realms wherein there is a finite set of resources and there are winners and losers in the allocation of these scarce resources.
o If more funding is to flow into one of the other policy areas, social policy will receive less funding.
In the second layer – this time within the realm of social welfare policy – there are finite available resources and there are winners and losers in the allocation of these scarce resources.
o In accordance with our historic traditions and values, the most “worthy” groups – children, the disabled and older citizens – tend to be winners in competing for scarce public resources committed to social welfare.
Societal values and social policy
- The U.S. is a highly diverse and complex society that is the product of a multitude of historic, political, social and economic forces.
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- Decisions regarding government action or inaction in social welfare will be driven by our dominant societal values that have evolved over time and from a variety of sources.
- In the United States this means that policies will be tempered by our biases in favor of private market solutions and individual responsibility.
- Our social welfare policies are sensitive to contextual conditions, particularly economic conditions.
When more individuals and families are in need during times of economic difficulties, interest groups (including social work professionals) look for greater government intervention.
During such periods, including the recent great recession, since tax revenues are down on all levels of government, the capacity of government to apply the resources to assist groups in need is strained.
Characteristics of American social welfare and social policy that help frame this course
- Summary characteristics of social welfare and social policy that we will re-visit throughout the course include:
The organizational complexity of American social welfare as demonstrated in our federal system of governance and interaction between the private (for-profit and nonprofit) and public organizations;
The socio-cultural context of American social welfare – in other words the values, beliefs, and traditions that imbue the American system; and,
The dominance of the American capitalist market system.
Private Programs and Social Policy
- Non-governmental or private approaches to dealing with human issues have always been part of the development of what we identify as western civilization. These private responses to human need have involved:
Families
Communities Trade groups
Religious organizations
- Private efforts pre-date government’s role in social welfare.
When governments began to assume responsibility for social welfare, private organizations began to play supplementary and/or complementary roles.
- Private organizations – nonprofit or for-profit – deal with every aspect of individual and group social welfare.
- Private social welfare organizations can be described in three general groups:
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Non-sectarian voluntary organizations Sectarian voluntary organizations
For-profit proprietary organizations
Private nonprofit organizations
- The nonprofit sector lies outside of, but is connected to, the government and market sectors of the U.S. economy.
For instance, nonprofits rely upon the government and for-profit corporations for funding and policy leadership.
They frequently provide services on behalf of government agencies through contractual arrangements.
- Dolgoff and Feldstein argue that six conceptual frames can be applied when considering the nonprofit sector in the U.S.:
First, it responds to the historic American tendency to look for non-governmental solutions to social problems.
o It fits a historic anti-government bias in the U.S.
Second, nonprofit organizations also embody the American cultural bias toward self-help.
o As we will discuss throughout the course, individual responsibility and self-sufficiency are core American values.
Third, the nonprofit sector provides goods and services that government and/or the market are not able or willing to provide or cannot provide as efficiently or effectively.
o For instance, services tailored to specific needs of a neighborhood or a group within the neighborhood.
Fourth, nonprofit organizations provide specialized services based on problem or community of interest (religious, ethnic) orientations that may not be appropriate for either the market or government.
o Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army are examples of this.
Fifth, the nonprofit sector is supported ideologically and financially by private individual and organizational decisions.
o For instance, nonprofit organizations may reflect the social, political and/or economic ideological perspectives of major funders, including corporations and wealthy families.
Finally, primarily through federal and state tax codes, the nonprofit sector is subjected to government oversight.
o This provides an indirect form of public accountability.
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- The nonprofit sector reflects the organizational and service delivery mode complexity of the public social welfare realm.
Fragmented responsibility and organizational structures.
- Although Americans find nonprofits attractive, there are weaknesses that can be attributed to reliance on nonprofits for social problem-solving:
Because nonprofit organizations tend to specialize, service gaps emerge. Private and public funding for nonprofits tends to follow economic cycles.
o So, we see that when the need is greatest during economic downturns, nonprofits also face their greatest financial struggles and limitations on capacity to serve because of reduced donations.
Private for-profit organizations
- Over the past 30 or 40 years we have seen a growth in the use of private for-profit organizations as providers of social welfare services.
The push for privatization has been a centerpiece of recent Republican administrations.
It has also been prominent in state social service policy and program development as state governments seek to economize and balance their budgets.
- Reliance on private organizations blurs the line between public and private responsibility.
This is particularly the case when government uses private organizations as the means for delivering services – either directly through contractual arrangements or indirectly by simply not providing for services at all.
If a private organization provides the service, how is accountability for effective delivery of services to be assured?
Social Policy and Social Science
- The study of social policy as a scholarly endeavor supported by the disciplines, theories, and methods of social science has gradually emerged over the past 90 – in part in correspondence with the development of the social sciences.
- In considering the development of social policy choices that are made in the United States, we need to take into account some of the dominant strands of economic, political and sociological theory that guide our scholarly discourse.
Economics
- Core concepts taken from economics not only permeate American public policy, they also tend to dominate social science thought and research in this country.
Central to neo-classical economic theory is a view of individuals as motivated by economic maximization.
o Economic theory is individualist to the core.
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- It carries over into social science in our over-emphasis on individual level measurement and analysis, rather than focus on the group or social system.
The psychology of “economic man” is played out in our reliance on the market to allocate societal resources.
- This is mirrored in public policy making that is driven by public choice theory based on interest groups seeking economic maximization.
- The use of vouchers in social interventions such as housing or education programs is a prominent example of this.
Political science
- The economic motivation described by economists is reflected in dominant political science theory, particularly conflict theory.
Conflict theory indicates that all social and political interaction is ultimately based on competition for scarce resources – competition that ultimately leads to conflict.
- If we look back on Dye’s description of the policy process we can infer competition among groups and the continuous potential for conflict at every step of the policy process.
Sociology
- From classic sociological thought we see the importance of structural-functional theory to the choices that are made in social policy.
Structural-functional theory generally posits that structural arrangements – such as social policies and programs – are made to support adaptation to change and to maintain societal stability.
o This is ultimately a fairly conservative view of the social world.
- The dominant theories taken from economics and political science argue for market-like choice making that has driven policy development in the United States.
The structural-functionalist view can be interpreted as a basis for societal intervention through government to maintain stability in the face of social dislocations attributable to the market.