Faricy book
explores social welfare policies and inequality
Book
studies the different spending tools favored by the major parties and their
effects on socioeconomic groups.
Christopher
Faricy’s new book builds on the premise that there are two social welfare
states in America – a Republican welfare state that uses tax subsidies to
benefit the wealthy and a Democratic one aimed at the working poor. The subject
of Welfare for the Wealthy (published
this week by Cambridge University Press) is how the two political parties
differ in funding social welfare programs and how these differences alter the
level of income inequality. Faricy explores why both political parties choose
to fund welfare programs just using different spending tools, which subsidize
opposing socioeconomic groups, and shift power from the public to private
sector.
While
Republicans augment social spending through the federal tax code, Faricy says,
Democrats tend to go through traditional appropriation methods. These
differences in implementation have major effects on national income inequality.
Faricy uses federal tax expenditure data to demonstrate that Republicans’
method of financing benefits businesses and wealthier citizens. He establishes
that increases in tax expenditures are paid for by cutting into discretionary
public social spending which ultimately worsens income inequality. Faricy’s
findings are significant for understanding who benefits from government
assistance, which social service providers are federally subsidized, and, most
importantly, income inequality in the United States.
Christopher
Faricy is an associate professor of political science and public policy and senior
research associate of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at the Maxwell
School. In 2012, Faricy won the Harold. D. Lasswell Award from the American Political Science Association
for the best dissertation in the field of public policy for his work examining
the differences in public and private social welfare. He holds a PhD from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Faricy has also garnered national media attention for this book in Vox and Mother Jones. 11/02/15