Poverty and Social Security in the United States: The Progressive Years and the 1970’s

Abstract

Conservatives in the 1890’s argued that poverty was unnecessary in prosperous America, but that where it existed it was the result of individual weakeness or character fault. Reformers argued that it was almost always the results of a misconstructed society, but they agreed with the conservative view that the United States was such a bountiful society that poverty was unnecessary, if only certain practices such as monopolization or child labor could be eliminated. Although reformers were aware of European social insurance, they asked for social justice, not social security.

Inspite of many changes brought by the New Deal and the War on Poverty, social perceptions from the pre-1914 years about poverty and social security still have widespread currency. The assumptions of prosperity and the absence of poverty remain. For many people, welfare recipients are mostly fraudulent loafers who do not want to work. There is widespread opposition to any further movement toward economic equality or social security.

Thus even in the face of very great economic and political changes, changes in social attitudes and perceptions have been very slow.

This paper was presented at a conference of the historians of the German Association for American Studies, Berlin, February 1980.