The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 19 (2008)

The American Welfare State and the City:
The Politics of the Social Welfare Policyin New York City under the Lindsay Administration

Takayuki NISHIYAMA*I.

THE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

In the United States, the federal government leaves the implementation ofmany social welfare programs to the states. The manner of implementation ofsocial welfare programs, for example, the Aid to Families with DependentChildren (AFDC) program, differs from state to state. In New York State, forinstance, local governments including New York City have a responsibility to
implement the AFDC program. Historically, the federal government has financed 50% of AFDC payments in New York State with a matching grant
and the state and local governments have each financed 25%.1 Even though
the United States is the first country to have enacted a law bearing the nameof “social security,” it is often described as an “incomplete welfare state” oras a “reluctant welfare state.”2 When considering the abovementioned features of the American welfare state, we need to analyze the politics of social
welfare policy at the city level to understand this incompleteness or reluctance.
American city governments have to secure financial sources to implementsocial welfare programs. City governments, however, do not have the authority to issue currency or limit the movement of people and businesses. ThereCopyright © 2008 Takayuki Nishiyama. All rights reserved. This work may be used,with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may
be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission
from the author.
*Associate Professor, Konan University

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fore, according to Paul E. Peterson’s “city limits” thesis, while the Americancity government has the structural features necessary to promote a developmental policy to attract important taxpayers like the middle classes or businesses, it hesitates to adopt a redistribution policy, fearing that a generous
welfare policy would attract the poor and assuming that taxpayers detest tax
burdens.3
Historically, poor blacks and immigrants have been concentrated in big
cities like New York. Further, the governments in big cities are confronted
with problems caused by poverty, such as homelessness and crime. Thesefeatures explain the dilemma of the American welfare state: city governments that face structural difficulties in adopting a redistribution policy havea responsibility to implement the AFDC program. Thus, we must analyze thepolitics of social welfare policy at the city level to fully comprehend the problems confronted by the American welfare state.
This paper seeks to clarify the importance of city politics in understanding
the nature of the American welfare state by examining the policy innovation
under the John V. Lindsay Administration (1966–1973) in New York City.
New York City is described within the literature of urban politics as a vanguard of urban liberalism—the construction of a local welfare state.4 New
York City has played a pioneering role in the expansion of the urban welfare
policy. The Republican Mayor Lindsay, the most prominent urban liberal,relaxed the requirements for welfare payments and launched an ambitious
campaign to sign people up for welfare. The welfare population in New York
City doubled from 538,000 in 1965 to 1,250,000 in 1972, this latter figure
constituting 16% of the total City population and amounting to 10% of thewelfare recipients in the United States. New York City was exceptionallygenerous in implementing its social welfare policy, even paying more in social expenditure than 15 states at that time. Until the 1980s, the welfare
population in New York City continued at a high level, ranging from 0.8 toone million.5
This drastic expansion of the social welfare policy under the Lindsay Administration poses two important questions. First, it contradicts Peterson’s
thesis that local governments hesitate to formulate redistributive policies.
Second, in New York City, nearly 70% of the voters are registered as Democrats and registered Republicans amount to less than one-third of the registered Democrats.6 We need to explain why a mayor from such a minority
party was able to achieve policy innovation in a one-party-dominated city. In
addition, we need to explain why this mayor from the Republican Party,
which is not considered as being sympathetic to social welfare policy afterTHE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

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the New Deal at the federal level, was able to achieve welfare expansion.
This paper argues that in New York City, the unique Democratic one-party
regime defined the politics of social welfare policy and that Lindsay achieved
welfare expansion because he was a Republican mayor. The analysis of thispaper will clarify that American city politics develops under a mechanism
different from that of American national politics. In addition, interestingly,
the case of the Lindsay Administration helps us understand the incompleteness or reluctance of the American welfare state. In order to comprehend thisargument, we must grasp the unique mechanism of the party politics, interest
group politics, and social movements in New York City. Before discussing
the main subject, we will briefly examine the existing theories.
II.

CITY POLITICS AND THE SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY

1) Existing Theories and Their Shortcomings
1-1) Pluralism
The most typical explanation of New York City politics is based on thepluralist theory.7 According to the pluralists, nobody with a strong interest in
the policy-making process will find themselves completely isolated. All they
have to do is form an interest group and assert their interests. Since theAmerican political regime guarantees open and equal access to every interest
group, all interest groups will receive some benefits in their specialized areas.
If we follow the pluralists’ argument, the expansion of New York City’s social welfare policy must be the result of the efforts to expand the public welfare of the poor immigrants and minorities.
This argument, however, has at least two problems. First, interest groups
cannot be formed as easily and equally as the pluralists assume. Since forming an interest group involves costs, the poor have more difficulties than businesses in organizing groups. In New York City, although poor blacks increased in number after World War II, their interests only came to be asserted
after the mid-1960s. In order to understand the politics of social welfare
policy in New York City, we need to explain when and how the poor people’sinterest group was formed and how they participate in politics.
Second, contrary to the pluralists’ assumption, the political system in New
York City is biased. We will examine this point in the next part of this paper.
1-2) Structuralism
The most sophisticated argument on city politics from the structuralist

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perspective is Peterson’s City Limits. Peterson clarifies the effects of federalism on American city politics and refers to the maintenance and enhancementof their economic productivity as “the interest of cities.” Since local governments have to secure their own revenue sources, economic prosperity is thebasis of their well-being. Therefore, while political elites promote a developmental policy that enhances the economic position of the city, they hesitate to
adopt a redistributive policy that benefits the poor but affects the local economy negatively. According to this theory, local governments will participate
in “the race to the bottom” wherein cities compete with other surrounding
cities to offer the least generous welfare benefits.8
Although Peterson’s City Limits is the most important work on urban welfare policy, it cannot explain Lindsay’s welfare policy. While Peterson andhis co-author Margaret Weir argue that long-term economic factors still account for the overall growth in New York City’s expenditure, their argument
cannot explain the expansion of the welfare roll under the Lindsay administration.9 Thus, we need to explain why the political elites in New York City
decided to go beyond the city limits to adopt a generous welfare policy.
The case of New York City clarifies the shortcomings of Peterson’s framework. First, Peterson assumes political elites as a unitary actor; however, themain political actors in New York City have their own interests. Second, welfare policy is not merely a redistribution policy. In other words, to understandthe case of New York City, we must grasp the meaning of social welfare
policy for each political elite, particularly for party politicians and businesses.
2) Three Aspects of the Urban Social Welfare Policy: Needs, Political Resources, and Social Regulations
2-1) The Urban Poor and Their Needs
In urban politics, welfare payments were distributed mainly through a federal AFDC program from 1935 to 1997. The program was named Aid to
Dependent Children (ADC) by the Social Security Act of 1935 and the words“Families with” were added in 1960. This was a noncontributory and meanstested public assistance program designed to meet the needs of poor single
mothers with dependent children.10
The labeling of the AFDC program as “welfare” was often denigratory,
and arguments regarding AFDC were often racialized. As analyzed by Martin Gilens, criticism of the American social welfare policy is backed up by the
prejudice that most welfare recipients do not work primarily because theylack the work ethic. This criticism of welfare recipients is amplified by theTHE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

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racial stereotype that most welfare recipients are black and that blacks areless committed to the work ethic than are other Americans.11
The social welfare policy at the city level is a typical redistributive policythat meets the needs of the poor but is criticized most severely by taxpayers.
Thus, in a sense, it is natural that city governments implement it passively.
The social welfare policy, however, has other important implications for political elites in city politics.
2-2) Political Elites and Social Welfare Policy
2-2-1) Bureaucrats
In Japan, bureaucrats are often conceived of as actors that promote public
interests based on their expert knowledge. In the United States, however, thetradition of politically neutral bureaucrats is weak and many of them are appointed politically. In addition, bureaucrats do not exclusively possess theexpert knowledge required for the policy-making process.12 Therefore, bureaucrats do not have the political autonomy that allows them to promote
their own policy against politicians. Rather, they have a strong loyalty to themayor or party organization and behave in a manner that meets the expectations of their appointer.
2-2-2) Party Politicians and Social Welfare Policy as Political Resources
Political scientist David R. Mayhew argues that the principal motivation oflegislators is reelection and that the pursuit of this goal affects the policy
process.13 The importance of considering politicians’ political motivation (tobe reelected) becomes evident when we analyze the urban policy process,because the urban party organization, which had developed as a profit-oriented organization to utilize public offices, places only secondary emphasis
on public policies.14
For those who wish to promote the interest of cities, social welfare may not
be an appropriate public policy. For party politicians, however, social welfare
can be an important means to obtain the votes of the poor. Therefore, party
politicians often make arbitrary decisions to obtain the votes of the poor without considering their financial bases.
2-2-3) Businesses and Social Regulations
Businesses are the most important taxpayers in the city. They can move thebusiness hub relatively easily and employ many city residents. City governments, therefore, place considerable emphasis on the intentions of businesses.
It is thus necessary to examine the meaning of social welfare policy for busi-

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nesses.
According to Fiona Williams, businesses participate in urban politics because they expect city governments to perform three important functions.
First, they expect city governments to sustain good conditions for capital accumulation. Second, they expect to secure healthy and well-trained humanresources. Third, they expect local governments to stabilize politics andmaintain social order.15 Seen from this perspective, businesses permit social
welfare policy so long as it helps in securing the stable supply of labor forces
and maintaining social control.
2-2-4) Social Welfare Policy in the City
Social welfare policy is a redistribution policy that meets the needs of thepoor. Since it does not directly contribute to the economic prosperity of thecity, we can assume that urban political elites will tend toward a consensus
not to expand it beyond what is absolutely necessary.
Social welfare policy, however, does not entirely contradict the interests ofbusinesses or politicians. Therefore, so long as it assists politicians in getting
reelected, and so long as city governments have sufficient financial resources
to implement it without burdening businesses excessively, they can expand
the social welfare policy.
III.

POLITICS OF THE SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY IN NEW YORK CITY

1) Basic Structures of New York City Politics
In New York City, the mayor enjoys overwhelming power in the policy
process, and the city government lacks effective formal counterbalances tothe executive powers of the mayor. The mayor can bypass congress and decide policies by issuing executive orders.16 Thus, the mayor has the institutional leverage to achieve policy innovations in New York City.
However, the mayor cannot always achieve policy goals completely. First,
there are institutional constraints from other bodies like the city council, state
government, and courts, even though these constraints are weak. Second, themayor has to secure the support of businesses and the middle class to secure
financial bases. Third, the mayor has to accumulate achievements in many
fields and secure the support of party organizations and interest groups inorder to get reelected or to seek higher office. Thus, the mayor has to coordinate the interests of many branches and groups to run the city effectively andto satisfy personal political ambitions. The party organization often helps themayor coordinate these interests.

THE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

1652) Democratic One-Party Dominated Regime
New York City has a unique Democratic one-party regime. Before theGreat Depression, a Democratic political machine, Tammany Hall, dominated the regime, having a huge influence not only on the board of estimate,
the city council, the courts, and interest groups, but also on the mayor. The
Tammany-dominated regime collapsed after World War II; however, the Republican Party did not have sufficient power to compete with the Democrats.17 The party was unable to field a mayoral candidate and the city council
was mostly occupied by Democrats. As stated earlier, in New York City,
mayors have the formal authority; however, the Democratic party organization has enjoyed the actual power and chosen the mayoral candidate.
Under such a Democratic one-party regime that lacks substantial party
competition, interest group politics also demonstrates certain unique features
because most business groups attempt to forge strong ties with the Democratic Party. Mayors from the Democratic Party are also receptive to the demands from business groups in order to secure votes and political funds andto run the city effectively. As a result, in New York City, even the politicalforces that support the Republican Party at the state and federal levels cooperate with the Democratic Party.
3) Democrats and the Interests of the Poor
Under such circumstances, it was difficult for the poor to fulfill their interests because they lacked sufficient funds or organization. Under the winnertake-all electoral system, the Democrats could win elections as long as theyobtained 50% + 1 vote in the district. They could function as selective mobilizers and prioritize consolidating their electoral bases comprising important
taxpayers.
As mentioned above, the interests of the poor did not completely contradict those of businesses and Democrats. If city governments drastically reduced the level of social welfare, social order might have deteriorated. Since
the welfare policy was utilized to mobilize voters, the Democrats were unable to drastically cut the benefit levels or welfare roll. Therefore, they preferred to maintain the welfare policy status quo.
The policy preference of the Democrats did not satisfy the needs of thepoor, who did not receive sufficient welfare benefits. However, things canchange when demographic changes occur, for example, as a result of the influx of poor immigrants and organization of poor people’s interests. In fact,
in the 1960s, the circumstances surrounding the poor blacks began to change.

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TAKAYUKI NISHIYAMAAs the civil rights movement moved north, blacks began to make their presence felt as a social movement in New York City. Since the city government
was structurally unable to include their political demands, their politicalmovements undermined the political and social stability. In addition, the advent of the Republican mayor accelerated the organization of the poor.
4) The Republican MayorIn New York City, the Republican Party has very few political resources
other than the patronage of the state and federal Republican Party organizations. Mayoral candidates from the Republican Party have to build up theirelectoral bases by themselves because they cannot rely on the party organization to win the election.
In order to win elections, Republican candidates have to mobilize votersthat have not been included in the Democratic party organization. Until the
1970s, when city governments could expect economic growth and federal
subsidies, Republican candidates attempted to win elections by including theinterests of the poor. As the poor grew in number and began to launch political movements, the possibility of getting elected increased for Republican
candidates in New York City. This is the reason why, paradoxically, the candidate from the Republican Party, which is assumed to be against the expansion of social welfare at the federal level, supported the expansion of thewelfare policy in New York City. In fact, Lindsay showed a sympathetic attitude toward the welfare rights movements and attempted to include the interests of the poor, in order to consolidate his electoral bases.
IV.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WELFARE RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1) The Welfare Rights Movement
1-1) The Emergence of the Welfare Rights Movement
The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) emerged as an attempt by welfare recipients to influence the American welfare system. The
NWRO was mainly constituted of black women, almost all of whom wererecipients of AFDC and had little opportunity to join the labor market.18
The welfare rights movement had its origins in three developments during
the 1960s. First, the civil rights movement stimulated the development of thewelfare rights movement.19 Black Americans who were socialized politicallyduring the movement became convinced that they could achieve their political goals even within the existing political institutions. The civil rights movement revealed the vulnerability of the political institutions. Thus, the welfareTHE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

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rights movements were partly the product of the civil rights movement.
Second, the federal War on Poverty policy fueled the welfare rights movements. The neighborhood centers, the operational arm of the Community
Action Program, were identified as the clear target of the movements. Additionally, the War on Poverty policy produced bureaucrats who were sympathetic to the welfare rights movements.20 Social movements became more
active in response to administrations that were more sympathetic to theircause.
Third, the change in the social philosophy affected the welfare rights
movements. During the 1960s, many social problems came to be regarded asproblems of social structure rather than of individuals. Richard Cloward and
Lloyd Ohlin’s Delinquency and Opportunities, which was an extension ofRobert Merton’s structural analysis, and which proposed structural changes
in American society designed to solve social problems, had a strong influence not only on intellectuals but also on administrations and social movements. Cloward and Ohlin participated in the initial development of the Mobilization for Youth (MFY) and Cloward was to play an active role as a
strategist of the welfare rights movement.21
1-2) The National Welfare Rights Organization
The Welfare Rights Organization (WRO) was organized in Alameda
County, California, for the first time in 1962,22 after which it spread nationwide. The strategy developed by Francis Fox Piven and Cloward and the organizational effort by George Wiley played a critical role in the proliferationof this movement.
Piven and Cloward adopted the core strategy of destroying the system legally by urging potential welfare recipients to demand legally mandated services and resources. According to Piven and Cloward, only half of the eligible
poor actually received aid. Therefore, if WROs could double or triple the relief rolls and secure legally mandated services, the state and local governments would be overburdened and would press for national reforms in thewelfare system along the lines of a national guaranteed minimum income.23
George Wiley, an associate director of the Congress of Racial Equality(CORE), spread the welfare rights movements nationwide based on the Piven
and Cloward strategy. Inspired by Cloward, Wiley founded the Poverty
Rights Action Center (PRAC) in 1966 to provide civil rights and antipoverty
activists with the means to facilitate communication and coordination. In
August 1996, representatives from many WROs gathered at the PRAC national headquarter in Washington, D.C., and established the National Coordi-

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nating Committee of Welfare Rights Groups (NCC).24
In April, 1967, the NCC adopted a membership rule to strengthen the organizations and to build a committed membership base. Individuals who
were welfare recipients, those who had been welfare recipients during thepast five years, or those who fell below the poverty line were basically allowed to belong to a local WRO. However, many local WROs were permitted
to have stricter requirements for membership. Local WROs could affiliate
with the NWRO when they had at least 25 members who annually paid $1 as
NWRO dues.25
The NWRO prioritized achieving members’ benefits and thus maintained
the enthusiasm of the participants. This was the most important feature of the
NWRO. WROs primarily requested the state and local governments to provide legal entitlements to their members. WROs obtained handbooks on
welfare regulations from sympathetic welfare bureaucrats and taught theirmembers effective ways to apply for aid or to complain about the rejection or
reduction of aid. WRO activities abided by the law and their demands to terminate arbitrary decisions by governments were persuasive. Thus, the eligible poor were able to receive legal entitlements relatively easily and enthusiastically supported the WROs.26 As a result, membership reached 2,500 in
1967 and 6,000 in 1968 in New York City alone.27
2) Welfare Rights Movement in New York City2-1) The Lindsay Administration
John Lindsay was a typical Liberal Republican, who valorized civil rights
and civil liberties and opposed corrupt Tammany Hall and businesses. After
graduating from Yale Law School, he became involved in the enactment of
the 1957 Civil Rights Act as an assistant of Herbert Brownell and as an attorney general of the Eisenhower Administration. After being elected to theHouse of Representatives in 1958, he devoted his energies to the enactmentof the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a member of the federal Judicial Committee.
Lindsay’s liberal voting record clearly distinguished him from mainstream
members of the conservative Republican Party.28
Even though Lindsay represented a safe congressional district in New
York City, he was ambitious for higher office. Since incumbent Governor
Nelson Rockfeller and Senators Jacob Javits and Robert Kennedy had solid
electoral bases in New York State, Linday’s only option to advance his political career was the mayoralty of New York City.29
In order to secure the mayoralty in New York City, where Democrats outnumbered Republicans three to one, Lindsay had to obtain the votes of theTHE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

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poor and blacks, who had been isolated from the electoral coalitions of the
Democratic Party. As a WASP, his ethnic background did not help him obtainthe votes of the poor and minorities; as a result, he worked hard on civil rights
issues and social welfare. He was a liberal who understood social problems
from a structural point of view, and who held a strong conviction in what
historian Vincent J. Cannato refers to as the “Protestant moralism” that regards selfishness as a moral sin. He criticized white racism, was in sympathy
with the city’s poor and minorities and justified behavior that many people
found inappropriate. Lindsay’s political stance provoked an angry response
from middle- and working-class whites.30 However, Tammany Hall was finally broken up and the Democratic Party organization did not possess theorganizational ability it needed to support its candidate Abraham Beam in the1965 mayoral election. Furthermore, ultra-conservative William F. Buckley,Jr., the founder and editor of the National Review, from the Conservative
Party took conservative votes from Beam, and in the end Lindsay got 43% of
the votes and was elected mayor.31
In order to get reelected, Lindsay had to appeal to the poor and to minorities to consolidate his electoral bases. In addition, to seek higher office, Lindsay had to make his achievements known to the whole country. Therefore, hemade every effort possible to promote the interests of the poor and minorities
and to prevent riots.32 As part of his strategy, he appointed Mitchell Ginsberg—a colleague of Cloward’s at the Columbia University School of Social
Work and an advocate of the total reexamination of the American public assistance program—as welfare commissioner of his administration. Alongwith President Johnson’s War on Poverty program, Lindsay’s decision helped
the success of the welfare rights movement in New York City.
2-2) Formation of the Local Welfare Rights Organization and the Development of the Movement
The attempt to organize the poor in New York City began with the MFY
programs in Manhattan in June 1957. The group, the core members of whichwere faculty members from the Columbia University School of Social Work,
with the involvement of the National Institute of Mental Health, the Ford
Foundation, and the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, began
to deal with all social problems associated with communities in 1961.33
At the same time, a WRO was also formed in Brooklyn by the middle-class
Puerto Rican activist Frank Espada. Many other local groups were formed
independently. In 1966, core activists like Espada and Cloward established
the City-Wide Coordinating Committee of Welfare Groups (City-Wide) in170

TAKAYUKI NISHIYAMANew York City and decided to cooperate with George Wiley of Washington,
D.C. in order to maximize their impact on the city and national welfare programs.34
To assure the poor people’s commitment to the movement, the New York
City WRO adopted the strategy of obtaining special grants to guarantee a legally mandated “minimum standard” lifestyle. They insisted that in order forthe poor to maintain the minimum standard lifestyle, regular grants for suchneeds as food, rent, and certain utilities were insufficient and special grants
for such needs as daycare fees or rent arrears must also be given to alleviate
their financial difficulties. While the regular grant was fixed in schedule anddetermined based on family size and composition, the special grant was variable and theoretically limitless because it was based on the individual needsof families. Further, while the regular grant was determined by the state legislature, the special grant was determined by caseworkers and was highly
responsive to pressures by welfare rights organizations. Therefore, these organizations were able to provide material benefits to their members in orderto obtain their commitment.35
2-3) The Climax of the Welfare Rights Movement
With the advent of the welfare rights movement, Mitchell Ginsberg, thewelfare commissioner and head of the city’s Human Resources Administration from 1966 to 1971, liberalized the application procedure. For example,
he decided to discontinue midnight visits to female welfare recipients. Welfare recipients were not allowed to live with male partners and city officials
often conducted midnight visits without prior notice to confirm that they
were abiding by this rule. Ginsberg accepted the welfare rights activists’ assertion that such midnight visits constituted a violation of human rights.
Ginsberg also ordered the caseworkers to urge eligible non-recipients to apply for assistance. He suspended interviews, means tests, and home visits, allof which had been carried out in the process of examining applications. Consequently, the rate of rejected applications dropped from 40% in 1965 to 23%
in 1968.36
As a result of the lawful and effective strategies of the welfare rights movement and Ginsberg’s liberal policy, the social welfare roll expanded in New
York City. According to Piven and Cloward,
1. The monthly amount of special grants was only $3 million in June
1967; in June 1968, this amount increased to $13 million.
2. The average monthly special grant per recipient jumped from $40 in
1965 to $100 in 1968.

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The welfare rights movement influenced, to some extent, acceptancesand closings and has thus contributed to increased roll.37

While the increase of weekly average wages from 1962 to 1967 was 30%,
the increase of the average grant levels during the same period was 45%.38
Thanks to the welfare rights activists’ assertion that welfare should be regarded as a human rights issue, the welfare recipients also became less stigmatized. Thus, some poor unskilled workers made an “economically rational” decision to stop working and apply for public welfare.39
2-4) The Waning of the Movement
The welfare rights movement reached its peak in 1968 but began to decline
as a result of the policy changes of the New York State government andstrong resentment from middle-class taxpayers.
As Piven and Cloward had anticipated, the city’s welfare system nearlycollapsed. In August 1968, the New York Times concluded that the welfare
rights movement had “thrown the city’s welfare program into a state of crisisand chaos.”40 However, contrary to Piven and Cloward’s expectation that local and state governments would urge the federal government to reform theAmerican welfare system, the New York State government announced its
decision to discontinue the special grants. Mayor Lindsay labeled this decision “a very positive thing.” The policy change caused serious damage to
WROs because immediate and tangible benefits would no longer be given toits members.41
New Yorkers’ angry response toward the city’s welfare policy was accompanied by corruption issues. Inspections of Human Resources Administration by district attorneys of Manhattan and United States Department of Labor revealed corruption among bureaucrats. When the New York Times
reported the results of these investigations, the public distrust of welfare administration grew.42 The 1972 New York State’s Social Service Department
survey concluded that 14% of New York City’s welfare recipients were receiving benefits illegally and that the City Government was spending $100
million more than it should do annually.43 The huge social expenditure andcorruption constrained Lindsay’s ambitions for higher office. In June 1972,
Lindsay finally announced that his administration would not increase the total number of welfare recipients.
Lindsay’s effort to address the interests of the poor and minorities generated strong resentment from middle- and working-class whites. Since manyof them had incomes, they were not qualified to receive social welfare; more-

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over, they did not have the leeway or the will to aid the non-working poor.
Lindsay’s rhetoric contrasting poor blacks with rich whites and his policy infavor of blacks angered them. Consequently, poor whites, rather than businesses, became the strongest critics of the social welfare policy. As Irving
Kristol and Paul Weaver wrote, “After decades of success … liberals must
often have felt that they represented majority opinion; yet the fact remainedthat they only served the needs of enough people to add up to a majority—
which is very different thing indeed.”44 Thus, it can be seen that the seed ofthe later welfare backlash was sown under the Lindsay Administration.
V.

CONCLUSION—IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AMERICAN WELFARE STATEThe expansion of social welfare benefits from the late 1960s to the beginning of the 1970s was due to the civil rights movement, the federal War on
Poverty, and welfare rights movements. Welfare rights movements in New
York City were intensified by the advent of the liberal Lindsay Administration. The advent of the liberal mayor was a huge opportunity for the poor who
had had difficulty in articulating their interests in the Democratic one-party
dominated regime and voicing their interests as a social movement.
Mayor Lindsay ordered Mitchell Ginsberg, who was sympathetic to thewelfare rights movement, to take charge of the social welfare policy, and thensupported Ginsberg’s policy. This was because Lindsay had to gain the support of those voters not yet taken by the Democratic Party in order to win theelection and seek higher office. In other words, the unique features of New
York City’s party politics generated drastic changes in the politics of social
welfare policy in New York City. It is surprising that the Republican mayor
cooperated with the welfare rights movements and achieved policy innovation to expand the social welfare policy in New York City. This case also
makes a good contrast with the Japanese or European welfare states because
in the United States social welfare policy was less institutionalized by the“state.”45
We should not forget, however, the limitations of policy innovation under
the Lindsay Administration. Lindsay himself did not formulate a new welfare
policy; policy innovation took place only at the policy implementation stage.
Further, Lindsay slowed the expansion of social welfare policy when the fiscal conditions became stringent.
As mentioned earlier, the United States is often described as an “incomplete welfare state” or as a “reluctant welfare state.” The argument of thispaper suggests a hypothesis on this point: the politics of social policy at theTHE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY

173

city level limits the expansion of the American welfare state. This argument
has two aspects: institutional and political.
First, as mentioned previously, the dilemma of the American welfare stateis that city governments that have a structural difficulty in adopting a redistribution policy nonetheless have a responsibility to implement the AFDC program. Thus, the development of the social welfare policy depends on thefiscal ability of the local government that implements the policy. Even though
the fiscal ability of New York City is better than that of other cities and its
social welfare policy generous compared to other cities, it was unable to secure sufficient fiscal resources to provide social welfare benefits to the poor.
From this fact, it can be speculated that it is very difficult for American cities
to secure the fiscal bases necessary to implement a comprehensive social
welfare policy.
Second, generally speaking, formulating a comprehensive policy requires
expert knowledge. In American cities, however, politicians, few of whom
have received high education and had expert knowledge, formulate public
policy. While Lindsay, who was educated at Yale Law School, was an exception on this educational level, he did not intend to formulate a comprehensivesocial welfare policy. For politicians desiring to formulate policies that will
give tangible benefits to their constituencies before the next election, investing time in formulating a comprehensive public policy is not an appropriate
choice.
Since politicians win elections if they get 50% + 1 vote under the winnertake-all election system, they need not provide relief to all poor people.
Therefore, they do not need to formulate a comprehensive social welfare
policy that meets the needs of the poor.
Criticism of the American welfare state intensified after the 1980s, andhistoric welfare reform was achieved under the Clinton Administration in
1996.46 However, the welfare reform achieved under the Clinton Administration intensified the problems of American welfare state outlined in this paperby expanding the autonomy of state and local governments. American cities
will continue to face the dilemma of the American welfare state analyzed inthis article.
NOTES
The analysis of this article will be elaborated in my forthcoming book Amerika gata fukushi
kokka to toshi seiji: Nyuyoku shi ni okeru aban riberarizumu no tenkai [The American WelfareState and Urban Politics: Historical Transition of Urban Liberalism in New York City], (University of Tokyo Press, 2008). This work was funded partly by the Matsushita International

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TAKAYUKI NISHIYAMAFoundation Grant and The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT), Grant-in-aid for Young Scientists (B) (18730106).
1
Irene Lurie & Mary Jo Bane, “Social Services,” in The Two New Yorks: State-City Relations in the Changing Federal Systems, ed. Gerald Benjamin and Charles Brecher (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 1988), 422−24.
2Theda Skocpol, “America’s Incomplete Welfare State,” Stagnation and Renewal in Social
Policy: The Rise and Fall of Policy Regimes, ed. Martin Rein, Gøsta Esping-Andersen and Lee
Rainwater (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1987); Bruce S. Jansson, The Reluctant Welfare State: A
History of American Social Welfare Policies (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1988).
3Paul E. Peterson, City Limits (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
4
Bernard Gifford, “New York City and Cosmopolitan Liberalism,” Political Science Quarterly 93 (1978); Fred Siegel, “The Social Democratic City,” The Pubic Interest 139 (2000);
Alan Brinkley, “Reflections on the Past and Future of Urban Liberalism,” Rethinking the Urban Agenda: Reinvigorating the Liberal Tradition in New York City and Urban America, ed.
John Mollenkopf and Ken Emerson (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001).
5
Vincent J. Cannato, The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New
York (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 539; Fred Siegel, The Future Once Happened Here:New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of American Big Cities (San Francisco: Encounter Books,
1997), 49; Takayuki Nishiyama, “New Paternalism in New York City: The Politics of Social
Welfare Policy under the Giuliani Administration,” Proceedings of the Kyoto American Studies Summer Seminar, August 1−August 3, ed. Hiroshi Yoneyama (Kyoto: Ritsumeikan University, 2006).
6
John Hull Mollenkopf, A Phoenix in the Ashes: The Rise and Fall of the Koch Coalition
in New York City Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 76.
7Wallace Sayre and Herbert Kaufman, Governing New York City: Politics in the Metropolis(New York: W.W. Norton, 1960).
8Peterson, City Limits; Paul E. Peterson and Mark Rom, Welfare Magnets: A New Case fora National Standard (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990).
9Peterson, City Limits, chap. 10.
10
About the history of social welfare policy, see, for example, Charles Noble, Welfare As We
Knew It: A Political History of American Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997).
11
Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
12
Cf., Martin Shefter, Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 3.
13David Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1974).
14
Takayuki Nishiyama, “Nyuyoku shisei taisei no henyo: LaGuardia no kaikaku to Tamani
shihai taisei no hokai,” [Historical Transition of New York City Politics: Political Reform under the LaGuardia Administration and the Collapse of Tammany-Dominated Regime] Kokka
Gakkai Zasshi, [Journal of the Association of Political and Social Sciences of Japan] 113−3/4(2000).
15
Fiona Williams, Social Policy: A Critical Introduction (New York: Blackwell, 1989), 35.
16David R. Eichenthal, “The Other Elected Officials,” and “Changing Styles and Strategiesof the Mayor,” Urban Politics, New York Style, ed. Jewel Bellush and Dick Netzer (Armonk,
N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1990).
17
Nishiyama, “Historical Transition of New York City Politics.”
18
Larry R. Jackson and William A. Johnson, Protest by the Poor: The Welfare Rights Movement in New York City (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1974), 14.

THE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE AND THE CITY19

175

Ibid., 14−17.
Ibid., 17−24.
21
Ibid., 24−27; Cf., Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin, Delinquency and Opportunity (NewYork: Free Press, 1960).
22
About NWRO, see Jackson and Johnson, op.cit.; Martha F. David, Brutal Need: Lawyers
and the Welfare Rights Movement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).
23
Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, “A Strategy to End Poverty,” The Nation
202−18 (1966), 510−517; Cf. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People’s
Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (N.Y.: Vintage Books, 1979).
24
Nick Kotz and Mary Lynn Kotz, A Passion for Equality: George Wiley and the Movement(New York: W. W. Norton, 1977); Jackson and Johnson, op.cit., 31−36.
25
Ibid., 33−36.
26
Ibid., 41.
27
Ibid., 116.
28
Cannato, Ungovernable City.
29
Ibid., chap.1.
30
Vincent J. Cannato, “John Lindsay’s New York and the Crisis of Liberalism” (Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1998), Intro.
31
Cannato, Ungovernable City, chap. 2; Chris McNicke, To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic
Politics in the City (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), chap. 8.
32Stephen M. David, “Welfare: The Community-Action Program Controversy,” Race andPolitics in New York City: Five Studies in Policy-Making, ed. Jewel Bellush and Stephen M.
David (New York: Praeger, 1971).
33
Jackson and Johnson, op.cit., 53−60.
34
Ibid., 60−74.
35
Ibid., 83−86, 131−132.
36Charles R. Morris, The Cost of Good Intentions: New York City and the Liberal Experiment (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), 70−71.
37
Jackson & Johnson, op.cit., 43−44
38David M. Gordon, “Income and Welfare in New York City,” Public Interest 16 (1969),
64−88; Nathan Glazer, “Beyond Income Maintenance: A Note on Welfare in New York City,”
Public Interest 16 (1969), 102−20.
39
Jackson and Johnson, op.cit., xxv.
40
New York Times, August 18, 1968.
41
Jackson & Johnson, op.cit., 119−127.
42
NYT, September 15 (1968); October 5 (1968).
43
Blanche Bernstein, Politics of Welfare: The New York City Experience (Cambridge: Abt
Books, 1982), 25.
44
Irving Kristol and Paul Weaver, “Who Knows New York?—And Other Notes on a MixedUp City,” The Public Interest 16 (1969), 57.
45
The word “state” does not mean “state government.” About the usage of the word “state”
in this meaning, see Theda Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in
Current Research,” in Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer,& Theda Skocpol (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
46
R. Kent Weaver, Ending Welfare As We Know It (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,2000).
20