Crash Course U.S. Government and Politics

Social Policy (1x49)

Air date: Feb 27, 2016

Today, Craig is going to talk about social policy - in the United States this means achieving one of three goals: protecting Americans from risk, promoting equal opportunity, or assisting the poor. Many Americans strongly believe in individualism, that is self-reliance, but since the Great Depression and the New Deal the government’s role has increased significantly. We’re going to focus on two social policies that came out of the New Deal - Social Security and what we tend to think of as “welfare” - and talk about why they’re still around now and potentially the future. These and other social policies are not without controversy, as things tend to be when involving our tax dollars, and we’re going to talk about that too.