American Politics Today - Essentials (3rd Ed)

SOCIAL POLICY| 449

and the ensuing Great Depression created a desperate economic situation for mil-
lions of Americans. An immediate concern was to alleviate the suff ering caused by
unemployment, but FDR also wanted to implement a broader “preventative social
policy.”^28 Thus his New Deal policies, enacted between 1933 and 1935, included

¾ the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which provided farmers with

much-needed assistance;

¾ the National Recovery Administration and Public Works Administration,

which reinvigorated the business sector;

¾ the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which provided $500 mil-

lion in emergency aid for the poor (about $7 billion in today’s dollars);

¾ jobs programs such as the Civil Works Administration and Civilian Con-

servation Corps, which put more than 2 million people to work, and later

the Works Progress Administration, a broader program that employed at

least one-third of the nation’s unemployed;

¾ Social Security, which included the familiar retirement

policy and supported the states for spending on unemploy-

ment compensation, disability programs, and support for

dependent children of single mothers—the precursor of the

central welfare program;

¾ the National Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed the

right to organize a union and set regulations for collective

bargaining between management and labor.^29

With these policies, the role of the federal government in social pol-
icy was forever changed. Although some aspects of the New Deal,
such as the jobs programs, were never repeated on a similarly broad

New Deal The set of policies

proposed by President Franklin

Roosevelt and enacted by Congress

between 1933 and 1935 to promote

economic recovery and social wel-

fare during the Great Depression.

TYPES OF SOCIAL POLICY

There are two main types of social policy:

¾ contributory (or social insurance) programs include Social Security, Medicare,

disability insurance, and unemployment compensation.

• similar to insurance programs in that people pay a specifi ed amount of
  money to cover some future benefi t (either expected, as with the programs
  related to retirement, or unexpected, as with disability and unemployment)


• not means-tested; that is, all people may participate in the program
  regardless of their income
  ¾ noncontributory (or public assistance) programs include Medicaid, food stamps,
  housing assistance, welfare, and school lunches.


• recipients are not expected to pay for the programs, which are means-
  tested, meaning that they are aimed at helping poor people
  ¾ The new health care law has elements of both a contributory and noncontributory
  program. People who are required to buy health insurance are “contributing” to
  their own insurance. However, those who cannot afford to pay for their insurance
  receive government subsidies (and thus are participating in a noncontributory
  program).

NUTS & bolts

14.2

BEFORE THE NEW DEAL PROGRAMS

in the 1930s, poverty relief

was provided mainly by private

charities. Here future fi rst lady

Eleanor Roosevelt serves meals

to unemployed women and their

children in a New York restaurant.