This dissertation looks at the nature of U.S. programs adopted from 1900 to 1930, including state workmen's compensation and in-firm health insurance to address what the combination of these patterns suggests about early U.S. welfare formation. The analysis consists of two investigations of U.S. welfare consideration. The first is the rate of state adoption of workmen's compensation to determine the political-economic factors which shaped the process of adoption. The second compares the U.S. consideration of health insurance to that in Great Britain in order to understand why several U.S. states seriously proposed, but rejected, state controlled health insurance. In both analyses I find that welfare outcomes were not just political decisions in the narrow sense, but were closely tied to aspects of the labor process, including the organization among and within firms. For example, the timing of when states adopted workmen's compensation was strongly affected by the size and productivity of firms in a state, as well as electoral politics in a state such as competition between parties and a change in governor. Similarly, the rejection of state health insurance in the United States was shaped in part by a particular construction of efficiency and an alternative development of welfare benefits within firms, which often included some provisions for health. / I conclude that the United States was not necessarily a welfare laggard compared to Western European countries, but that the United States developed a particular organization of welfare programs that served to strengthen the ties of employees to employers within the firm, rather than to establish direct ties of the working class to the state as in Britain. Furthermore, I argue that this pattern of early U.S. welfare has shaped the welfare system of the post-World War II era, since our current system relies heavily on in-firm benefits for both pensions and health insurance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-07, Section: A, page: 1903. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76136 |
| Contributors | PAVALKO, ELIZA KEITH., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 210 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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