MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 03204cam a22003857a 4500
001 2005616191
003 DLC
005 20060119082432.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 050128s2005 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2005616191
040 $aDLC$cDLC
043 $an-us---
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aWallis, John Joseph.
245 10 $aPolitics, relief, and reform$h[electronic resource] :$bthe transformation of America's social welfare system during the New Deal /$cJohn Joseph Wallis, Price Fishback, Shawn Kantor.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2005.
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 11080
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 1/28/2005.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"The American social welfare system was transformed during the 1930s. Prior to the New Deal public relief was administered almost exclusively by local governments. The administration of local public relief was widely thought to be corrupt. Beginning in 1933, federal, state, and local governments cooperatively built a larger social welfare system. While the majority of the funds for relief spending came from the federal government, the majority of administrative decisions were made at state and local levels. While New Dealers were often accused of playing politics with relief, social welfare system created by the New Deal (still largely in place today) is more often maligned for being bureaucratic than for being corrupt. We do not believe that New Dealers were motivated by altruistic motives when they shaped New Deal relief policies. Evidence suggests that politics was always the key issue. But we show how the interaction of political interests at the federal, state, and local levels of government created political incentives for the national relief administration to curb corruption by actors at the state and local level. This led to different patterns of relief spending when programs were controlled by national, rather than state and local officials. In the permanent social welfare system created by the Social Security Act, the national government pressed for the substitution of rules rather than discretion in the administration of relief. This, ultimately, significantly reduced the level of corruption in the administration of welfare programs"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
650 0 $aPublic welfare$zUnited States$xHistory.
650 0 $aSocial service$zUnited States$xHistory.
650 0 $aSocial security$zUnited States$xHistory.
651 0 $aUnited States$xSocial policy
651 0 $aUnited States$xPolitics and government$y1933-1945.
651 0 $aUnited States$xSocial conditions$y1933-1945.
700 1 $aFishback, Price Van Meter.
700 1 $aKantor, Shawn Everett.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 11080.
856 40 $uhttp://papers.nber.org/papers/W11080