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Title: The Missing Middle: Working Families and the Future of American Social Policy by Theda Skocpol, Richard C. Leone ISBN: 0-393-32113-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but sometimes general and repetitive
Comment: I believe that the biggest problem that our nation is currently facing, aside from the recent issues brought about by the terrorist attacks, is social stratification. Early on in The Missing Middle, author Theda Skocpol points to glaring statistics that back this up. For instance, in 1987 only 14.8% of the U.S. population excluding the elderly were not covered by private or public health insurance. In 1997 the number had increased to 18.3%. Generally speaking, one-third of our nation's impoverished are uninsured despite the booming economy of the 90s. A quote from Lester Thurow, who wrote the bestseller "Head to Head," points out that the bottom 60% of the population could not benefit from the economic explosion because they are not the ones that own stocks. The bottomline is that the really rich (top 1%) are getting richer while everyone else is staying the same or declining.
This book addresses the many problems that social stratification brings about to the "missing middle." Of course, the two biggest issues that Skocpol addresses are national-level public policy that deals with social security and healthcare, making clear from the outset that most Americans expect to receive these benefits from the government. The book, in short, deals with not only the societal trends and public policies, but also with the conflicts and possibilities of American domestic policy.
This book is divided into five chapters and the topics include: the missing middle, background on successful social policy, the security of our grandparents, social security for today's generation, and what it will take to build a successful system. The first four chapters are sometimes general and repetitive, but the final chapter is well worth the read.
In the last chapter, Skocpol outlines what she thinks can be done to "reach for the missing middle." Claiming that the best defense to social security is an offense, the author suggests that the social security trust fund be used for post-high school loans for education and job training, with the loans repaid at a slightly higher interest rate. Another recommendation is to start a Child Support Assurance system, in which the absent parent in a single-parent family is automatically deducted a set percent from each paycheck. Other suggestions include a bigger charity movement, an increase in the earned income tax credit (EITC) for low-wage working families, and increasing the minimum wage. Three other general suggestions are to push for universal health care, paid family leave, and affordable child care. All of these recommendations are mere suggestions, and the weakness of the chapter is that Skocpol does not address the positive and negative effects of these policies.
Rating: 4
Summary: Exposing the Reality Underneath the Myth
Comment: Theda Skocpol does an excellent job in bringing to light a problem that not only will not go away, but a problem that has been made worse by this nation's politicans, both Democrat and Republican. And yet it is an easy problem to ignore, because the economy has yet to betray it.
The word of the day is "investment." The nation has enjoyed an 8-year bull market, the Dow, for the moment, is still over 10,000, and we are said to enjoy a budget surplus. Yet, there is talk of a further tax cut to aid those on whom the tax burden is supposedly the greatest: the rich and the poor.
But the largest and most oppressive tax burden has always fallen on the working class (often called the middle class to deflect any sort of class consciousness). It is the working class that pays the most into the system and gets the least out of it. The rich enjoy loopholes, the poor are helped by such gimmicks as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Both the loopholes and the EITC (as well as the budget surplus)are funded by the taxes paid by the working class, for whom the tax system offers few benefits aside from the famous mortgage interest deduction that is seemingly always under attack from some economist or politican as a form of welfare.
Skocpol takes a thoughtful look into a system that aids the very rich and the very poor often at the expense of the forgotten working class. A decline in wage progess coupled with little or, in many cases, no health care has left the working class vulnerable to financial disaster, often turning them into the working poor, where a two-salary family is often necessary to keep heads just above the financial water line.
Skocpol's only flaw is putting too much emphasis on the role of government. While government has certainly played its role in getting things to where they are today, the working class has functioned as an enabler. Union membership is down to less than 15% of the working class, and unions themselves often throw their support behind politicans who have little or no sympathy. Government policies have played their role in helping this country lose most of its manufacturing base in favor of a service economy (with its inevitable consequences in terms of wages and benefits). The slide towards today has been a broup effort.
How to fix the mess? Skocpol's suggestions, for the most part, would only serve to enable further mischief (lending individuals money from the Social Security Trust Fund for education or training), while others, such as the expansion of Medicare to all, are short on details on how to function without draining the economy -- and thus raising taxes on a working class ever more burdened by the spectre of overtaxation.
However, all criticisms aside, this is a welcome volume that should be more wide read than it probably will be.
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Title: Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the Twenty-first Century by Barry Bluestone, Bennett Harrison, Richard C. Leone ISBN: 0520230701 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 02 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: One Nation, After All : What Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, The Right, The Left and Each Other by Alan Wolfe ISBN: 014027572X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality by Myron Orfield, Bruce Katz ISBN: 0815702493 Publisher: The Brookings Institution Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Social Policy in the United States by Theda Skocpol ISBN: 069103785X Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 22 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations by James A. Thurber ISBN: 0742509915 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Non NBN) Pub. Date: 15 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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