What was the nature and extent of social change

Air controller strike 1981

• 13,000 on strike

• Reagan threatened to fire them if they did not return to work in 48 hours and he did

OBRA finance cuts

• Mainly targeted federal spending on projects for the poorest

• Altered AFDC - fewer families eligible and payments capped

States running work programmes by January 1987

42

Social housing availability

• 1970 - 2.4 million low-income homes available

• 1985 - 3.7 million families qualified, no homes available

Social housing spending

• 1978 - $32.2 billion

• 1988 - $9.2 billion

Federal funding available to the homeless

• 1984 - $300 million

• 1988 - $1.6 billion

1987 McKinney Act

• Set up the Federal Emergency Management Food and Shelter Program

• To be run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

FEMA

• Matched state grants to local homeless projects half-and-half

• State had to choose project and put funding in place before federal money was given

• State funding could be raised through taxes, charities or donations

• Set up housing project for transitional housing - emphasis on the elderly, disabled, veterans, families with children and Native Americans

• Emergency medical care to the homeless

• Education for homeless children

• Job training that favoured homeless veterans

1982 Job Training Partnership Act

Shifts job training from federal hands to state and private schemes and removes any need for the trainees to have their incomes made up to the minimum wage

1983 Social Security Reform Bill

• Delays the linking of payments to inflation from July to December

• Raises the amount the government takes from wages to cover the benefit

• Sets up a study of running the Social Security Agency as a privately run agency

• Makes part of benefit payments taxable

• Changes the earnings test for eligibility

• Retirement credits are now not fully payable until 1967 (vs 1965)

1988 Family Support Act

• A family is only to be eligible for benefits if at least one parent is working for at least 16 hours a week

• Single parents expected to finish education and job training, the state to provide childcare

Mortgage debt and foreclosure 1980-7

• Mortgage debt increased by 30%

• Rate of foreclosure quadrupled

Hours of leisure time a week

• 1973 - 26

• 1987 - 16

Racial discrimination lawsuits filed in the first 6 months of presidency by the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department

• Reagan - 5

• Nixon - 24

NAACP magazine The Crisis in 1982

Said the Reagan administration’s inaction harmed minority groups e.g. abandonment of busing

Amount of funding withdrawn for bilingual education

40%

Woman appointed to the Supreme Court

Sandra Day

Funding for AIDS research

1982

Reagan’s help for small businesses

Let them pay personal, not business, tax

Number of small businesses set up 1981-2

500,000

Farming background

• 1970s - USA supplied wheat to USSR, encouraged farmers to expand (big loans) and grow wheat (subsidies)

• 1979 - USSR invaded Afghanistan, USA stopped exporting wheat in protest

• 1980s - interest rates rose as money supply was tightened

• 1983 - drought

Situation of farmers in 1980

17% of farmers were getting 60% of the subsidy fund

National Save the Family Farm Coalition

• Set up in 1986 by farmers

• Organised demonstrations and campaigns e.g. tractorcades

Farmers in Iowa

• In 1983, 500 farms were sold every month

• Farmers committed suicide at 4x the rate of other workers

• Incidents of farmers shooting the lenders who called in loans

Supporting the farmers

• In 1984, two Hollywood movies about the farm crisis, Country and The River, sparked widespread support

• Stars of the films testified to Congress about what they had seen while researching and filming

• Advice hotlines set up to help farmers understand their debts and work out how to restructure them

• In September 1985, a Farm Aid concert was held and raised millions of dollars for farmers

Population below the poverty line in Baltimore and Cleveland

>20%

Employment in East Coast in 1987

• California and East coast had 5.6% unemployment (vs 7.8% in the rest of the country)

• 75% of all new businesses and 60% of new jobs

Percentage of Black Americans who voted for Reagan in 1984

9%

States won by Reagan

• 1980 - 44

• 1984 - 49

Percentage of voters who felt they were better off in 1984 than 1980

49%