Overview

This chapter examines the social problems that federal welfare programs are designed to alleviate and describes how these programs operate. It addresses public education policy. A goal of this chapter is to provide an informed basis for understanding issues of social welfare and education and to show why disagreements in this area are so substantial. They involve making hard choices that almost inevitably require trade-offs between federal and state power and between the values of individual self-reliance and egalitarian compassion. The main points of the chapter are these:

• Poverty is a large and persistent problem in America, affecting about one in seven Americans, including many of the country's most vulnerable groups--children, female-headed families, and minorities.
• Welfare policy has been a partisan issue, with Democrats generally taking the lead on government programs to alleviate economic insecurity and Republicans acting to slow down or reverse these initiatives.
• Social welfare programs are designed to reward and foster self-reliance or, when this is not possible, to provide benefits only to those individuals who are truly in need.
• As a result of America's individualistic culture, public support for social insurance programs (such as social security) is far higher than for public assistance programs (such as TANF).
• A prevailing principle in the United States is equality of opportunity, which in terms of public policy is most evident in the area of public education. No country invests more heavily in its public schools and colleges than does the United States.