Edward D. Berkowitz

Disabled policy : America's programs for the handicapped

Combining history and an analysis of policy today, this book exposes the contradictions in Americas disability policy and suggests means of remedying them. Based on careful archival research and interviews with policymakers, the book illustrates the dilemmas that public policies pose for the handicapped: the present system forces too many people with physical impairments into retirement, despite the availability of constructive alternatives.

The Carter Presidency: Policy Choices in the Post-New Deal Era

In this book, more than a dozen eminent scholars provide a balanced overview of key elements of Carters presidency, examining the significance of his administration within the context of evolving American policy choices after World War II. They seek not only to understand the troubled Carter presidency but also to identify the changes that precipitated and accompanied the demise of the New Deal order. Grounded on research conducted at the Carter Library, The Carter Presidency is an incisive reassessment of an isolated Democratic administration from the vantage point of twenty years. It is a milestone in the historical appraisal of that administration, inviting us to take a new look at Jimmy Carter and see what his presidency represented for a dramatically changing America.

Businessman and Bureaucrat: The Evolution of the American Social Welfare System, 1900–1940

Between 1900 and 1940, organized industry and the federal government, acting in conjunction with the states, created an American social welfare system. The two major participants in this process evolved along similar lines during this period. Both began as simple organizations and developed into complex, functional bureaucracies. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the federal government did not exist as a social welfare entity. Private corporations, the first to face the administrative and economic problems posed by the development of national markets, created social welfare systems for their employees long before the New Deal. Until the depression, these efforts enjoyed clear supremacy. By the end of the 1930s, however, a distinctly “public†social welfare bureaucracy and program had been developed on the federal level. Corporations and the state underwent similar changes but at different times, and the difference in timing influenced their relations. This essay describes the growth of these public and private bureaucracies and identifies their similarities and differences during the early twentieth century.

The Scenic Road to Nowhere: Reflections on the History of National Health Insurance in the United States

This historical essay looks at the changing meaning of health insurance over time and explains how broad economic and political forces have created that meaning at any one time but that these forces interact with the contingencies of the moment to produce a particular outcome. That outcome in turn influences the subsequent development of health insurance.

Disabled Policy A Personal Postscript

This paper analyzes the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and argues that the Act continues a historical tradition, expressed in generations of disability policies, of using the policy process to soften the conflict between the rhetoric of rights and the realities of economies. The paper emphasizes the continuities between present and past disability policies and explains why many analysts, including the author, did not anticipate the passage of ADA.

Social security after fifty : successes and failures

Acknowledgments Introduction: Social Security Celebrates an Anniversary by Edward D. Berkowitz Historical Perspectives on Old-Age Insurance: The State of the Art on the Art of the State by Mark H. Leff The First Advisory Council and the 1939 Amendments by Edward D. Berkowitz Social Security and the Economists by Henry J. Aaron and Lawrence H. Thompson The Plight of the Social Security Administration by Martha Derthick Social Security: A Source of Support for All Ages by W. Andrew Achenbaum Social Security in 1995: The Future as a Reflection of the Past by Wilbur J. Cohen A Reply to Wilbur J. Cohen by Robert J. Myers Recommended Reading Index About the Contributors

Welfare Reform in the 1950s

Contrary to the impression left by historians, neither welfare expansion nor welfare reform died in the 1950s. Even conservatives believed in the necessity of federal spending for welfare. Disagreements came over the proper ways to spend federal money. The Eisenhower administration propagated a rehabilitation approach in an attempt to use federal money to end individual, state, and local dependence on the federal government. The administrations 1954 social security and vocational rehabilitation laws reflected this approach. Bureaucrats in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, working with a Democratic Congress, managed to extend the 1954 laws into a major expansion of federal power, as the passage of disability insurance in 1956 demonstrated. Institutional continuity, not heroic individual effort, provided the dynamic for welfare reform in the 1950s.

A Historical Preface to the Americans with Disabilities Act

On 26 July 1990, President George Bush signed an ambitious new civil rights law at an emotional ceremony held on the South Lawn of the White House. Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, PL 101–336) brought civil rights protections for people with disabilities to a level of parity with civil rights protections already enjoyed by racial minorities and by women. What accounted for a Republican administration enthusiastically endorsing a sweeping civil rights law that might benefit as many as 43 million people? Briefly put, historical traditions within disability policy that in turn reflected broader trends within social welfare policy between 1950 and 1990 allowed the ADA to be portrayed in conservative terms that were congenial to a Republican administration.

SOCIAL INSURANCE FOR THE DISABLED AND ELDERLY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Disability and old age, lumped together early in the history of social insurance, are related public policy concerns. Despite their association, however, old age provides a much more secure route to social welfare benefits than does disability. The welfare state for the elderly is larger and enjoys stronger political support than does the welfare state for the disabled. This disparity raises intriguing historical questions about the development of American social welfare policy in the twentieth century.

Extensive but Not Inclusive: Health Care and Pensions in the United States

At first glance, the differences between health and pension policies in the United States appear stark. Lacking national health insurance—a trait often used to single out the United States among welfare states—the United States relies primarily on employers and individuals to finance medical care. Since some people are unemployed, others work for employers who do not offer health insurance, and few can afford to buy health insurance on their own, many Americans remain without coverage. The government fills in some of the gaps by offering health insurance to almost all of the elderly and many of the permanently disabled, children, and the poor. In contrast, the US government provides a retirement pension to virtually every senior citizen. Social Security, the core program, has been the single largest item in the national budget for years. Private pensions supplement, rather than replace, Social Security. Thus, although health care is largely private (but with the federal government being the largest single payer), pensions are fundamentally public (but with an accompanying, less developed private pension system).