Bøger af Edward D. Berkowitz

JFK tagged him Mr. Social Security. LBJ praised him as the planner, architect, builder and repairman on every major piece of social legislation [since 1935]. The New York Times called him one of the country's foremost technicians in public welfare. Time portrayed him as a man of boundless energy, infectious enthusiasm, and a drive for action. His name was Wilbur Cohen. For half a century from the New Deal through the Great Society, Cohen (1913-1987) was one of the key players in the creation and expansion of the American welfare state. From the Social Security Act of 1935 through the establishment of disability insurance in 1956 and the creation of Medicare in 1965, he was a leading articulator and advocate of an expanding Social Security system. He played that role so well that he prompted Senator Paul Douglas's wry comment that an expert on Social Security is a person who knows Wilbur Cohen's telephone number. The son of Jewish immigrants, Cohen left his Milwaukee home in the early 1930s to attend the University of Wisconsin and never looked back. Filled with a great thirst for knowledge and wider horizons, he followed his mentors Edwin Witte and Arthur Altmeyer to Washington, D.C., and began a career that would eventually land him a top position in LBJ's cabinet as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Variously described as a practical visionary, an action intellectual, a consummate bureaucrat, and a relentless incrementalist, Cohen was a master behind-the-scenes player who turned legislative compromise into an art form. He inhabited a world in which the passage of legislation was the ultimate reward. Driven by his progressive vision, he time and again persuaded legislators on both sides of the aisle to introduce and support expansive social programs. Like a shuttle in a loom he moved invisibly back and forth, back and forth, until the finely woven legislative cloth emerged before the public's eye. Nearly a decade after his death, Cohen and his legacy continue to shadow the debates over social welfare and health care reform. While Congress swings with the prevailing winds in these debates, Social Security's prominence in American life remains vitally intact. And Wilbur Cohen is largely responsible for that.

?The papers making up this book were given at a 1986 conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Social Security system. Chapters on the earlier history are followed by an evaluation of how economists have viewed social security, and by an analysis of the influence of administrative problems. W. Andrew Achenbaum makes some bold proposals for fundamental changes in social policy. Wilbur J. Cohen, a founding father, ' gives his vision of social security ten years from now; and Robert J. Myers, another insider, ' counters by predicting no essential change. These contributions should be of interest to those concerned with American social policy. Recommended for research collections.?-Library Journal

In America's Welfare State, Edward Berkowitz offers a concise and informative historical overview of this costly and often frustrating area of domestic policy.

In the second half of the 20th century, no one had more influence over social security than Robert Ball who, in 1947, wrote the key statement defining why social insurance, not welfare, should be America's primary income maintenance programme.

In both the literal and metaphorical senses, it seemed as if 1970s America was running out of gas. The decade not only witnessed long lines at gas stations but a citizenry that had grown weary and disillusioned. High unemployment, runaway inflation, and the energy crisis, caused in part by U.S. dependence on Arab oil, characterized an increasingly bleak economic situation. As Edward D. Berkowitz demonstrates, the end of the postwar economic boom, Watergate, and defeat in Vietnam led to an unraveling of the national consensus. During the decade, ideas about the United States, how it should be governed, and how its economy should be managed changed dramatically. Berkowitz argues that the postwar faith in sweeping social programs and a global U.S. mission was replaced by a more skeptical attitude about government's ability to positively affect society.From Woody Allen to Watergate, from the decline of the steel industry to the rise of Bill Gates, and from Saturday Night Fever to the Sunday morning fervor of evangelical preachers, Berkowitz captures the history, tone, and spirit of the seventies. He explores the decade's major political events and movements, including the rise and fall of detente, congressional reform, changes in healthcare policies, and the hostage crisis in Iran. The seventies also gave birth to several social movements and the "e;rights revolution,"e; in which women, gays and lesbians, and people with disabilities all successfully fought for greater legal and social recognition. At the same time, reaction to these social movements as well as the issue of abortion introduced a new facet into American political life-the rise of powerful, politically conservative religious organizations and activists.Berkowitz also considers important shifts in American popular culture, recounting the creative renaissance in American film as well as the birth of the Hollywood blockbuster. He discusses how television programs such as All in the Family and Charlie's Angels offered Americans both a reflection of and an escape from the problems gripping the country.

The first comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), written by a leading historian of America's welfare state and the former chief historian of the Social Security Administration.

Such key considerations as the adequacy of protection, the financing problems, issues of fairness, the response to disability, and the health care needs of the elderly are particularly focused on--the authors' are sensitive to the social welfare nature of the programs.

Creating the Welfare State investigates how private business and public bureaucracy worked together to create the structure of much of the modern welfare state in America.

This book exposes the contradictions in America's 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 system forces too many people with physical impairments into retirement, despite the availability of constructive alternatives.