Book contents
- Responsive States
- Responsive States
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Federalism and Policy Feedback
- 2 The Surprising Persistence of Unemployment Insurance
- 3 The Brief Life of the Sheppard–Towner Act
- 4 The Remarkable Expansion of Medicaid
- 5 The Rise and Demise of General Revenue Sharing
- 6 How Superfund Sowed the Seeds of Its Own Instability
- 7 No Child Left Behind and the Politics of State Resistance
- 8 Policy Design, Polarization, and the Affordable Care Act
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Surprising Persistence of Unemployment Insurance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2019
- Responsive States
- Responsive States
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Federalism and Policy Feedback
- 2 The Surprising Persistence of Unemployment Insurance
- 3 The Brief Life of the Sheppard–Towner Act
- 4 The Remarkable Expansion of Medicaid
- 5 The Rise and Demise of General Revenue Sharing
- 6 How Superfund Sowed the Seeds of Its Own Instability
- 7 No Child Left Behind and the Politics of State Resistance
- 8 Policy Design, Polarization, and the Affordable Care Act
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Social Security Act of 1935 created a federal-state program of unemployment insurance (UI) funded by employer payroll taxes and characterized by extensive state discretion over benefits and employer contributions. In the decades that followed, concerns about UI’s inadequacies led federal lawmakers to attempt repeatedly to replace it with a national system of unemployment insurance or, failing that, to establish national benefit standards. Nonetheless, the original federal-state arrangement persists to this day with only minor modifications. Upon the program’s creation, a powerful alliance of state officials and business groups developed a vested interest in the status quo and successfully resisted periodic reform efforts. These self-reinforcing feedback effects are especially noteworthy since state officials had not lobbied energetically for UI’s creation.
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- Responsive StatesFederalism and American Public Policy, pp. 41 - 57Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019