From the preface: “This book deals with man as a member of society, and with his behavior of concern to public health. Its aim is to impart in an organized fashion some of the conclusions, of potential significance to public health, that may be drawn from man’s studies of himself as an individual and as a member of society. What is presented represents an attempt to unite theory, research, and practice in a away meaningful to the public health practitioner.”

Andie L. Knutson was professor of behavioral sciences, School of Public Health, and research behavioral scientist, Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley.

This book takes origin from Cornell’s program for research and training in culture and applied science, addressing the question of facilitating the introduction of modern agriculture, industry, and medicine to areas that are deficient in these technologies. Of central concern is the fact that technological innovations are apt to have consequences ranging from hostility toward the innovator to extensive disruption and crisis in the society. More generally, people resist changes that appear to threaten basic securities, that they do not understand, or that are forced on them. This casebook offers actual examples of efforts, both successful and unsuccessful, to bring about a change in some culture, with the desirability of using social science as an aid to technology.

Contributors: John Adair, Anacleto Apodaca, Wesley L. Bliss, Henry F. Dobyns, Allan R. Holmberg, Margaret Lantis, Alexander H. Leighton, Allister MacMillan, Morris Edward Opler, Tom Taketo Sasaki, Lauriston Sharp, Rudra Datt Singh, Edward H. Spicer, and John Useem.

Edward H. Spicer was professor of anthropology and sociology, University of Arizona.

A plan for their national collection and a handbook of methods recommended by the committee on governmental labor statistics of the American Statistical Association. This volume presents the consensus of opinion of the members of the Committee on Governmental Labor Statistics concerning problems involved in the collection and publication of adequate employment statistics for the United States.

Ralph G. Hurlin was director of the Department of Statistics of the Russell Sage Foundation.

William A. Berridge was associate professor of economics at Brown University.

A volume of the “Population of the United States in the 1980s” series commissioned by the National Committee for Research on the 1980 Census, which utilized data from the 1980 census to analyze trends in American life, Dollars and Dreams explores the dramatic changes in U.S. standard of living as wage stagnation and rising income inequality in the 1970s and 1980s began to undermine Americans’ traditional economic optimism. Levy examines various social and economic trends in income distribution since World War II, such as the rise of the suburbs, the fall of the steel industry, the baby bust, double-income families, single-parent households, income growth among the elderly, and deficits in Washington. His follow-up, New Dollars and Dreams: American Incomes and Economic Change, was published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1999.

FRANK LEVY is Daniel Rose Professor of Urban Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

With economic and community development as focus, this book draws on anthropology, social psychology, and the behavioral sciences to develop a theory of the human processes that result in social and cultural stability and change.

Ward Hunt Goodenough was professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

An examination of philanthropic efforts in London between 1480 and 1660, exploring the urban social conscience and the power of urban aspirations at the time, as well as the origins of modern cultural institutions in England. Jordan documents the vast charitable system made in London and the social philosophy of the merchant aristocracy which controlled the city’s affairs.

Wilbur Kitchener Jordan was president of Radcliffe College and a historian specializing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain.

This study traces the origins of miners’ unions in the United States, particularly the rise of the American Miners’ Association, the first national miners’ union, in the 1860s, as well as that of U.S. organized labor history more generally. It includes data on production, earnings, mine accidents, and the social and living conditions of miners. Its author, Edward A. Wieck, was an Illinois coal miner and member of the United Mine Workers before being appointed by the Russell Sage Foundation to investigate developments affecting trade unions under the National Recovery Administration. With an introduction by Mary van Kleeck.

Edward A. Wieck was research associate in the Department of Industrial Studies at the Russell Sage Foundation.

The Russell Sage Foundation began to publish compilations of bibliographies and directories of American foundations in 1915. This 1946 volume is an outgrowth of the foundation’s early reference work. In addition to listing and describing foundations, this book discusses their history, organization, resources, fields of activity, and general trends useful to foundation boards and the general public alike. It contains a descriptive directory of 505 foundations.

Shelby M. Harrison was general director of the Russell Sage Foundation.

F. Emerson Andrews was director of publications at the Russell Sage Foundation.

An exploration of life in the military, particularly rank and file servicemembers, to better comprehend the relationship of the armed forces to American society. Moskos examines, among other things, the portrayals of soldiers in the media from World War II to the Vietnam War, the changing technological and bureaucratic characteristics of the social organization of the armed forces, and political attitudes, pay grades, and demographics of servicemembers, as well as race relations among enlisted men and behavior of combat soldiers in Vietnam.

Charles C. Moskos, Jr. was a professor at Northwestern University and a sociologist of the United States military.

“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.