“Tax breaks are the largest component of the U.S. welfare state, more costly than Social Security and Medicare combined. Christopher Ellis and Christopher Faricy’s pathbreaking analysis illuminates the broad political appeal of these programs in a country wary of ‘big government’ and obsessed with ‘deservingness.’ It also highlights the social cost—in economic inequality and unrelieved poverty—of America’s peculiar reliance on a submerged welfare state.”
—Larry M. Bartels, May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science, Vanderbilt University

“The Other Side of the Coin is far and away the most in-depth study of American attitudes toward tax expenditures. The authors and that standard models of public opinion provide an incomplete understanding of these attitudes, demonstrating along the way that tax expenditures could be a fruitful pathway to generating support for redistribution.”
—Nathan J. Kelly, professor, Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee

Despite high levels of inequality and wage stagnation over several decades, the U.S. has done relatively little to address these problems – at least in part due to public opinion, which remains highly influential in determining the size and scope of social welfare programs that provide direct benefits to retirees, unemployed workers or poor families. On the other hand, social tax expenditures – or tax subsidies that help citizens pay for expenses such as health insurance or costs of college, and invest in retirement plans – have been widely and successfully implemented, and they now comprise nearly 40 percent of the spending of the American social welfare state.  In The Other Side of the Coin, political scientists Christopher Ellis and Christopher Faricy examine public opinion towards social tax expenditures — the other side of the American social welfare state – and their potential to expand support for such social investment.

Tax expenditures seek to accomplish many of the goals of direct government expenditures, but they distribute money indirectly, through tax refunds or reductions in taxable income, rather than direct payments on goods and services or benefits. They tend to privilege market-based solutions to social problems such as employer-based tax subsidies for purchasing health insurance versus government-provided health insurance.

Drawing on nationally representative surveys and survey experiments, Ellis and Faricy show that social welfare policies designed as tax expenditures, as opposed to direct spending on social welfare programs, are widely popular with the general public. Contrary to previous research suggesting that recipients of these subsidies are often unaware of indirect government aid – sometimes called “the hidden welfare state” – Ellis and Faricy find that citizens are well aware of them and act in their economic self-interest in supporting tax breaks for social welfare purposes. The authors find that many people view the beneficiaries of social tax expenditures to be more deserving of government aid than recipients of direct public social programs, indicating that how government benefits are delivered affects people’s views of recipients’ worthiness. Importantly, tax expenditures are more likely to appeal to citizens with anti-government attitudes, low levels of trust in government, or racial prejudices. As a result, social spending conducted through the tax code is likely to be far more popular than direct government spending on public programs that have the same goals.

The first empirical examination of the broad popularity of tax expenditures, The Other Side of the Coin provides compelling insights into constructing a politically feasible—and potentially bipartisan—way to expand the scope of the American welfare state.

The sixth biennial issue of reports on the status of organized activities in social work and in related fields, including 83 signed articles prepared by authorities on the topics discussed as well as a directory of national and state agencies, both governmental and voluntary, related to social work.

This pamphlet reviews the work of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, as well as the National Conference of Jewish Charities, in regard to relief and care for the homeless. It was written while the Transient Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the first nationwide program for the care of the homeless, was in operation.

Jeffrey R. Brackett was chairman of advisory board, Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare.

A model aimed for use by various institutions that provide asylum to orphaned children and struggling mothers, including temporary receiving homes into which mothers who might otherwise abandon their children are received with them. The model is designed to exhibited the chief sanitary features which the medical profession recognize as essential to success in saving the lives and improving the vitality of the babies who must have institutional care temporarily.

From the foreword: “Every other winter the legislatures of about forty states meet in deliberative session. They consider approximately 1,000 bills on educational questions and enact about 200 of them into law. This pamphlet has been compiled with the object of making available to legislators, school workers, and others having at heart the interests of public education, salient facts concerning school conditions in all the states. The figures have been derived from official sources and every care exercised to insure their accuracy. Every endeavor has been made to avoid complexities and technicalities. The object of the work is to render available to each state the experience of all.

A selection from the papers written by Mary E. Richmond, edited with biographical notes by Joanna C. Colcord, director of the Charity Organization Department, Russell Sage Foundation, and Ruth Z.S. Mann.

MARY E. RICHMOND was director of the Charity Organization Department at the Russell Sage Foundation.

A report on the adoption of the Transportation Agreement, with contributions from Alexander M. Wilson, assistant director of the Department of Public Health and Charities of Philadelphia; Mabel Tibbot, overseer of the poor, Fort Dodge, Iowa; George S. Wilson, secretary of the Board of Charities, District of Columbia; and the State Board of Charities of Missouri, in a “Letter of Advice to County Courts.”

A look at athletic exercises promoted by the Girls’ Branch of the Public Schools Athletic League, including folk dancing, relays, and athletic competitions. From the Playground Association Committee of America.