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Journal of Policy History 13.2 (2001) 288-292



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Book Review

Race and Welfare in United States Social History

Anne Marie Cammisa


Michael K. Brown. Race, Money, and the American Welfare State. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999). Pp. xvi, 374. $22.50 (paper).

Robert C. Lieberman. Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). Pp. xiv, 234. $45.00

The history of race and welfare in the United States is multilayered and complex, as demonstrated by these two books, each of which makes a valuable, if different, contribution to the literature. Michael K. Brown provides an in-depth chronological history of welfare policy in the United States, arguing that fiscal limitations as well as deep-seated racism shaped policy decisions on welfare. Brown believes that limitations in U.S. policymaking capacity have left us with "truncated universalism," in which some social policies (Social Security and the G.I. bill) were successful in covering broad categories of citizens, while others (Aid to Dependent Children [ADC]) have been hamstrung by their particularism. Robert Lieberman provides a comparative case study of three essential components of the Social Security Act of 1935: old-age insurance (OAI), ADC, and unemployment insurance, arguing that the institutional framework set up for each of these policies affected its potential for expansion of coverage. He argues that policymakers in 1935 were constrained by southern Democrats in Congress into making welfare policies that would allow for discrimination against blacks, either overtly or covertly. Both books illuminate the complicated relationship between race, welfare, and politics in the United States.

Michael Brown's Race, Money, and the American Welfare State is a painstakingly researched account of the making of welfare policy [End Page 288] from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. He argues that both racism and fiscal conservatism limited the government's ability to create broad-based social policies. The racial environment of the 1930s included not only Southern opposition to policies aimed at providing assistance to blacks but also a labor market that consciously discriminated against blacks. Unions, which were invested in keeping the labor market favorable to their own white workers, lobbied for private health insurance and other "fringe benefits," hampering the development of a comprehensive welfare state. At the same time, Democratic presidents were limited by their own fiscal conservatism from creating more expansive welfare programs. Thus white Americans were more likely to benefit from public and private policies, while black Americans were relegated to the less popular ADC, and then blamed for their dependence on cash assistance.

Brown demonstrates that Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson were constrained by fears of declining "business confidence," forcing both the New Deal and the Great Society to fall far short of providing universalistic social policies. While business confidence was necessary for economic recovery from the Depression, Brown demonstrates that job creation in the private sector consistently and consciously discriminated against blacks, leaving them the recipients of less popular public assistance. Limited government spending in the New Deal resulted in truncated universalism, in which Social Security was viewed as a worthwhile government program because of its broad constituency. In contrast, ADC, a particularistic program aimed at those not covered by other programs, became associated with black Americans and encouraged racial stereotyping.

Presidents Johnson and Kennedy were forced into what Brown calls a Faustian bargain: tax cuts now, with the promise of deficit spending later. Unfortunately for social programs, the increases in spending were curtailed by Congress. Brown argues that black Americans consistently lobbied for universal programs, but that policymakers chose a different path. While Great Society programs were intended to be "color-blind," fiscal realities meant that the best use of money would be to target it at predominately black inner-city populations. In many cases, even the recipients of Great Society money resented it as demeaning, and an example of differential, paternalistic treatment of blacks.

Brown convincingly makes the argument that American social policy has hardened racial lines and encouraged racial stereotypes, [End Page 289] and that the policy...

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