Columbia Population Research Center

Many believe that the welfare state undermines productivity, economic growth and development; that the United States has an unusually small welfare state; and finally that the United States is and always has been a welfare state laggard. This paper shows that all three propositions are false when one includes education along with cash benefits and health care support as part of the welfare state. We argue that the social programs that constitute the welfare state complement capitalism and enrich nations. The American welfare state is not unusually small, but, it is peculiar in its reliance upon the combination of employer-provided benefits and weak cash benefit programs for the poor. Finally, the United States rather than always being a laggard in welfare state development was a leader in the provision of public education for most of its history, but now lags behind other rich nations. Irwin (Irv) Garfinkel is Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems at the Columbia University School of Social Work and co-director of the Columbia Population Research Center. Timothy Smeeding is director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs at the La Follette School of Public Affairs and Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and founder and director emeritus of the Luxembourg Income Study