The United States doesn't have a universal public health insurance system, much less a universal public healthcare provider system. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans live in social housing, while around 20 percent do in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Austria. The city of New Orleans has no traditional public schools left. Observing this state of affairs, we can reasonably conclude that the US has a threadbare welfare state, right?
The trouble is that lately the definition of the term “welfare state” is starting to blur. In a new paper titled “American Exceptionalism and the Welfare State: The Revisionist Literature,” Monica Prasad suggests we clarify it — for our own sake.
Political economists, Prasad observes, have recently caught onto a very important distinction. They've pointed out that while it's true the US doesn't engage in very many direct expenditures (i.e. spending public money directly on social programs) compared to peer nations, we do have an elaborate system of tax expenditures intended to facilitate private welfare provision.
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