Texas Business Review, August 1967

The Business Situation in Texas; Climatology at Work in Texas; Texas Building Construction, January-June 1967; Texas Retail Sales, January-June 1967Bureau of Business Researc

National Income Insurance: Some Implications for Political and Economic Inequality

Several co-workers and I have recently completed an evaluation of sixty-three anti-poverty programs and proposals (Williamson, et. al., 1973, 1974). This paper briefly describes the study and some of our findings by way of introduction to the presentation and defense of a national income insurance proposal, This proposal is a synthesis of three highly rated anti-poverty strategies. It would within a few years have a substantial impact on the extent of the economic inequality in the United States

The Economic Status of the Elderly: Is the Problem Low Income?

The thesis of this paper is that poverty among the elderly is increasingly becoming a problem of relative as opposed to absolute economic deprivation. Many of the elderly (persons age 65 and over) are oppressed by the absolute poverty they must endure, but for most of those for whom inadequate income is a source of concern, the real problem seems to be relative economic deprivation. If present trends continue this will be increasingly the case in future years

An Evaluation of the Case Against National Income Insurance

In an earlier paper I outlined a proposal for a national income insurance plan and discussed the strengths of the approach (Williamson,1974c). Income insurance is a special case of the negative income tax or more generally of the guaranteed income. Negative income tax proposals of any kind are open to a variety of criticisms from both the left and the right. The national income insurance plan is no exception. In the present paper an attempt is made to anticipate and deal with the major arguments against the plan. Many of these arguments are equally applicable to other guaranteed income proposals. For this reason the paper is in large measure an evaluation of the major arguments against the guaranteed income approach to income maintenance

Review of \u3cem\u3eSocial Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Micro Estimation.\u3c/em\u3e Jonathan Gruber and David A. Wise (Eds.). Reviewed by John B. Williamson.

Book review of Jonathan Gruber and David Wise (Eds.), Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Micro Estimation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, $99.00 hardcover

Understanding the Debate Over the Privatization of Social Security

Serious consideration is being given to the merits of privatizing Social Security. Debate over privatization and the future of Social Security gives expression to two differing value systems: the community-enhancing values of the program\u27s defenders versus libertarian values of its critics. This article examines the implications of the debate. Areas of agreement among advocates and opponents of privatization are discussed. Special attention is paid to conflicting views about privatization and to the distributive implications of proposals to address the program\u27s projected financing problem. In shifting much risk from government onto individuals, privatization would undermine basic Social Security protections. And it would complicate the program\u27s financing problems and in the long run weaken political support. Moreover, many alternative benefit or tax changes can address the shortfall without weakening the moral basis of Social Security

Socioeconomic Achievement: The Case of the Working Poor

In recent years a great deal of effort has gone into the specification of causal models describing the social mobility process, but virtually no effort has been made to specify a model for the poor, a segment of the population for which the issue of social mobility is particularly crucial. In the present study we ask whether the process of socioeconomic achievement for the poor can be described using the same model as for the non-poor, or whether a separate model is required for the poor; we conclude that a separate model for the poor is needed. The data used is a national cross-section panel study; respondents were interviewed once yearly for each of five consecutive years. In the present study, which is limited to male heads of household in the labor force, we find that such variables as father\u27s education and father\u27s occupational status have a stronger impact on the occupational status of the poor than on that of the non-poor. Education on the other hand has a stronger impact on the occupational status of the non-poor. These differences are summarized in separate path models for the poor and for the nonpoor

The Origins of English Aging Policy: A Re-Examination of the Cyclical Theory of Social Relief

This paper examines the explanatory power of Piven and Cloward\u27s cyclical theory of social relief through an exploration of policies in England from the twelfth through the nineteenth century. While there is evidence of a cyclical trend between restrictive and liberal policies in this period, we find that those shifts cannot consistently be explained by social turmoil. There is also evidence of a long-term trend toward a more restrictive aging policy which is unaccounted for by cyclical theory. This trend can be better explained by a more basic set of ideas uncerlying cyclical theory, i.e., the needs of a capitalist economic system