"This policy-oriented biography surveys the history of Social Security from 1950 to the present through the eyes of the public servant most crucial to its development. Drawing on exclusive access to Robert Ball's papers and Ball's own extensive oral memoir created for this project, Edward D. Berkowitz explains how Social Security came to be America's most important social welfare program. Ball's role in expanding coverage to more workers during the...

Social welfare policy in the United States has gone from controversy in the 1930s, to consensus at mid-century, and back to controversy and confusion in the late twentieth century. In America's Welfare State, Edward Berkowitz offers a concise and informative historical overview of this costly and often frustrating area of domestic policy.