A brief text presenting conflicts and controversies surrounding social welfare policy. This book is part of the Connecting Core Competencies Series. This series helps students understand and master CSWE's core competencies with a variety of pedagogy highlighted competency content and critical thinking questions for the competencies throughout. Essentials of Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy(a briefer version of Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy, 7/e) introduces the major social welfare policies and programs in the United States and encourages readers to think about conflicts in social welfare today. It emphasizes the current political aspects of policymaking and major social welfare programs. In this book, social welfare policy is portrayed as the ever-evolving result of public conflict over social problems, the resources Americans choose to allocate to those problems, the debate over whether these problems can best be solved through government, and the political choices involved in reaching even tentative consensus. Teaching & Learning Experience Personalize Learning MySocialWorkLab delivers proven results in helping students succeed, provides engaging experiences that personalize learning, and comes from a trusted partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to helping students and instructors achieve their goals. Improve Critical Thinking Includes critical thinking questions in margins and end of chapter review questions that 'build' on each other. Engage Students MySocialWorkLab engages students with videos, cases, and licensing-type core competency questions. Explore Current Issues Includes the most recent data on healthcare reform, the midterm elections, and public policy changes, and more. Apply CSWE Core Competencies Integrates the 2008 CSWE EPAS throughout highlights competencies and practice behaviors and includes expensive pedagogy. MySocialWorkLab adds value with core competency videos and hundreds of competency-based questions. Support Instructors An Instructor's Manual and Test Bank, Computerized Test Bank (MyTest), MySocialWorkLab with Pearson eText, Blackboard Test Item File, and PowerPoint presentations are included in the outstanding supplements package. Note:MySocialWorkLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MySocialWorkLab, please visit:www.mysocialworklab.comor you can purchase a valuepack of the text + MySocialWorkLab (at no additional cost). VP: 0205042554

Diana DiNitto is Cullen Trust Centennial Professor of Alcohol Studies and Education and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin where she teaches courses in social welfare policy, alcohol and drug problems, research, and pedagogy. She has a MSW degree and a Ph.D. in government from Florida State University. She has worked in a detoxification center, halfway house, and outpatient chemical dependency treatment program. She is also coauthor of Chemical Dependency: A Systems Approach, 4th ed. (Pearson, Summer 2011) and Social Work: Issues and Opportunities in a Challenging Profession, 3^rd ed. (Lyceum Books, 2008). Her research in on substance abuse, violence against women, and social welfare policy. Dr. DiNitto has served on the boards of the Council and Social Work Education, the Association of Medical Education and Research on Substance Abuse, and the Texas Research Society on Alcoholism. She currently chairs the NASW Press Book Committee. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Sydney (Australia). Recently she gave the Robert J. O’Leary Memorial Lecture at Ohio State University entitled “Ending America’s Ambivalence in the War on Drugs” and presented invited testimony on drug policy to the United States Sentencing Commission.

David H. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Social Work at Millersville University of Pennsylvania where he teaches courses in social welfare policy and law, social welfare policy and economics, human behavior in the social environment, social work practice, research methods, and mediation. He has a MSW degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and a Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin.  Prior to social work, he spent more than two decades in the public sector including several years of progressive responsibilities in the health insurance industry. He received honorable mention for the 2010 Dissertation Award of the Society for Social Work and Research for his dissertation A Structure by No Means Complete: A Comparison of the Successful Passage of Medicare and Medicaid under Lyndon Baines Johnson with the Failure to Pass National Healthcare Reform under William Jefferson Clinton. His research is in social welfare policy, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS. He has direct practice experience in child welfare and homelessness, as well as research experience with the Health Behavior Research and Training Institute at the University of Texas at Austin Center for Social Work Research. He has served on the boards of the NASW-Mississippi Chapter Board of Directors, the Balance of State Continuum of Care, and AIDS Services Coalition. He currently serves on the NASW-Pennsylvania Chapter Public Policy Committee and the Lancaster County Medical Foundation Board of Directors.

IN THIS SECTION:
1.) BRIEF
2.) COMPREHENSIVE

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BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 

Introduction: Politics, Rationalism, and Social Welfare Policy
Chapter 1: Politics and the Policymaking Process
Chapter 2: Analyzing, Implementing, and Evaluating Social Welfare Policy
Chapter 3: Politics and the History of Social Welfare Policy
Chapter 4: Ending Poverty: Is It An Issue Anymore?
Chapter 5: Preventing Poverty: Social Insurance and Personal Responsibility
Chapter 6: Disability Policy: From Public Assistance to Civil Rights
Chapter 7: Helping Needy Families: An End to Welfare as We Knew It
Chapter 8: Financing Healthcare: Can All Americans Be Insured?
Chapter 9: Preventing Poverty: Education and Employment policy
Chapter 10: Providing Social Services: Help for Children, Older Americans, and Individuals with Mental and Substance Use Disorders
Chapter 11: The Challenges of a Diverse Society: Gender and Sexual Orientation
Chapter 12: The Challenges of a Diverse Society: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration
Conclusion: Politics, Rationalism, and the future of Social Welfare Policy

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COMPREHENSIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 

Introduction: Politics, Rationalism, and Social Welfare Policy
Social Welfare Policy: A Political Approach
Conclusion

 

Chapter 1: Politics and the Policymaking Process
The Policymaking Process
Financing the Welfare State
Summary

 

Chapter 2: Analyzing, Implementing, and Evaluating Social Welfare Policy
The Politics of Policy Analysis
The Politics of Policy Implementation
Evaluating Social Policy
Summary

Chapter 3: Politics and the History of Social Welfare Policy
The Early History of Social Welfare Policy in America
The Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal
LBJ and the War on Poverty
More Expansion of Social Welfare
The Reagan and Bush Years
The Presidential Years of Bill Clinton
The George W. Bush Presidency
Barack Obama’s Presidency: Year One
Summary

Chapter 4: Ending Poverty: Is It An Issue Anymore?
What Is Poverty?
Why Are the Poor, Poor?
The Politics of Hunger
The Politics of Affordable Housing
Poor and Homeless: Not Invisible Any More
A Fundamental Shift
Summary

 

Chapter 5: Preventing Poverty: Social Insurance and Personal Responsibility
Preventing Poverty through Compulsory Savings
Social Security: The World’s Largest Social Welfare Program
Social Security’s Goals: Adequacy, Equity, and Efficiency
Saving Social Security
Public Policy and Private Pensions
Unemployment Insurance
Workers’ Compensation
Summary

Chapter 6: Disability Policy: From Public Assistance to Civil Rights
A Fair Definition, A Fair Policy
Public Assistance for the “Deserving Poor”
Veterans Administration Disability System
Disability and Work
The Era of Civil Rights for Individuals with Disabilities
Disability Policy for Children
Disability Policy for the Future
Summary

Chapter 7: Helping Needy Families: An End to Welfare as We Knew It
From Mothers’ Aid to AFDC
Making Parents Pay: A History of Child Support Enforcement
Benefits of Child Support
Child Support Enforcement Agency’s Services
Effectiveness of Child Support Enforcement
State Compliance and CSE Privatization
The Reincarnations of Welfare and Work
Why the Fuss about Welfare?
Has Welfare as We Knew It Ended?
Summary

 

Chapter 8: Financing Healthcare: Can All Americans Be Insured?
Healthcare: Crossroads of Politics and Social Welfare Policy
Good Health or Medical Attention?
How Americans Pay for Healthcare
What Ails Healthcare?
Incrementalism and the 2009—2010 Effort for Universal Healthcare
Meanwhile, Back at the States
Healthcare: More Ethical Dilemmas
Summary

 

Chapter 9: Preventing Poverty: Education and Employment Policy
Education for the Few or the Many?
Public Education: The Progressive Era to World War II
The Post World War II Era: Increased Federal Involvement in Education
Was Thirty Years of Education Reform Necessary?
Education and the Obama Administration
Federal Reluctance in Employment Policy
Reluctance Overcome: The New Deal
The War on Poverty: The Search for a Cure
Minimum Wages and Living Wages
Economic Crisis and the Obama Stimulus Plan
Summary

Chapter 10: Providing Social Services: Help for Children, Older Americans, and Individuals with Mental and Substance Use Disorders
Social Services in the United States
Child Welfare Policy and Services
Social Services for Older Americans
Social Services for Individuals with Mental and Substance Use Disorders
Summary

Chapter 11: The Challenges of a Diverse Society: Gender and Sexual Orientation
The Feminization of Poverty
The Wage Gap and Comparable Worth
Women in Political Office
Resuscitating the Equal Rights Amendment
Family Care
No Middle Ground on Abortion Rights
Confronting Violence against Women
A New Era for Gay Rights
Summary

 

Chapter 12: The Challenges of a Diverse Society: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration
Racial Equality: How Far Have We Come?
The Civil Rights Acts
School Desegregation
Housing and Racial Discrimination
Affirmative Action
Voting Rights
Troubles in Indian Country
Racial and Ethnic Targeting
Immigration and Social Welfare
Summary

Conclusion: Politics, Rationalism, and the Future of Social Welfare Policy