520 MT - The Welfare State

Germany (1880s)

Often cited as the first federal social welfare state

Three Pillars or Goals of the Welfare State

1. Seek to advance economic security

2. Attempt to achieve a minimum level of

   material sufficiency

3. Provide essential goods and services (i.e., basic services)

Advancing economic security

• protecting people from common hazards of life

• unemployment, illness, retirement, death

• achieved by helping people offset loss of income

• programs: social Security, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation

Material sufficiency

• a minimum standard of living

• opportunities to bring individuals to the mainstream

• programs: TANF, SSI, Food Stamps, Medicaid, Section 8, public housing

Essential goods and services

• policies that provide fundamental public services

• basic services: healthcare, housing, food, nutrition,

• goal can be met with public education

Universal health care

right of citizenship in most all welfare states (not in the US)

Models of the welfare state

1. residual

2. institutional

3. developmental

Residual model

• traditional/conservative view that social welfare is not a significant social institution

• only necessary when “normal” channels fail (friends, family, charities, markets)

• social welfare is undesirable and expendable, seen as “safety net”

Institutional model

• social welfare is an integral and normal first line function of modern industrial society

• does not serve as “safety net” after other channels fail

• perceived as basic social institution, primary means to fulfill social and economic needs

Developmental model

• assumes that all citizens need socially provided goods and services to develop and participate in society to maintain desirable standard of living

• it is possible for society to offer social welfare to make living better (quality of life, fulfill human development), not necessarily to solve a problem or aid those in distress