Welfare for the Wealthy Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States

How does political party control determine changes to social policy, and by extension, influence inequality in America? Conventional theories show that Democratic control of the federal government produces more social expenditures and less inequality. Welfare for the Wealthy re-examines this relationship by evaluating how political party power results in changes to both public social spending and subsidies for private welfare - and how a trade-off between the two, in turn, affects income inequality. Christopher Faricy finds that both Democrats and Republicans have increased social spending over the last forty-two years. And while both political parties increase federal social spending, Democrats and Republicans differ in how they spend federal money, which socioeconomic groups benefit, and the resulting consequences for income inequality.

1. The politics of social policy in America; 2. The partisan politics of the divided US social welfare state; 3. Political parties and public social spending: testing the conventional wisdom; 4. Government subsidies and the private American social system: the special case of tax expenditures; 5. A Republican welfare state?; 6. The modality of social spending and income inequality in America; 7. The implications of the divided American welfare state.

Christopher Faricy is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, New York. His research has won a number of national awards including the American Political Science Association's 2012 Harold D. Lasswell Award and the Midwestern Political Science Association's 2010 Pi Sigma Alpha Award. His research has appeared in various journals including the Journal of Politics and Political Behavior and has been financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. His research has also been written about in the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and Mother Jones.