Reagan's impact on Social Policy is often one of the more challenging sections of Reagan's presidency. This theme featured in the 2023 Edexcel A-Level History 1F Source Question. Therefore, it is essential this topic is covered thoroughly and diligently.
Course: In search of the American Dream: t...
Reagan and Social Policy Summary Notes
Cuts in Welfare
• 1st term: helped secure deep cuts AFDC with400k no longer able to claim the benefit + AFDC cost cuts by $1bn
• OBRA made large cuts $35bn domestic welfare programmes; $25bn cuts affected the poor; OBRA cut food stamps by 13%, child
nutrition programmes cut by 28% + Medicaid by 5%
Workfare
• Attempted reduce dependency of the underclass; by Jan 1987 42 states running work programmes
• 1981-82 changes to food stamp programme stopped 4% (1m) from receiving them
Cuts in Federal Spending
• FED assistance to local govs cut 60%; dismantled federally funded legal services for poor, cut anti-poverty Community
Development Block Grant Programme + reduced funds for public transit
• 1980: FED spending accounted for 22% big city budgets; end of 2nd term only 6%
Cuts in Social Housing + Homelessness
• 1st year in office Reagan cut budget for public housing by 50% to about $17.5bn
• Homelessness had reached 1.2m by late 1980s; ¼ attended mental institutions, 40% spent time jail, 1/3 delusional
• FED funding did increase from $300m 1984 → $1.6bn 1988 (international image)
• 1987 McKinney Act provided 15 programmes providing range services such as emergency shelters etc
Standard of Living for ‘Working Americans’
• Development information technology with no. personal computers rose 1.2m 1981→ 20.3m 1988; Computer Science degrees
tripled
• 6m jobs created in professional, managerial + technical sectors 1980-88
• No. restaurants increased 1/3 1980-88 + no. shopping malls 22k→36k
• 20% more vacations by 2988
• Credit card spending + debt 2x 1980-88
• ‘Two-tier’ wage scalers + decline workers’ rights under diminishing trade union membership: Boeing paid new workers 40% less
than established workers
• 1980-87 mortgage costs increased 30% + rates foreclosure 4x
• 1983: 500 farms sold each month + high rates suicide amongst farmers
Women
• Only 47% women voted for Reagan 1980 election in fear loss of rights
• Single mothers/poor minority women badly affected by cuts food stamps, Medicaid + AFDC
• End of Reagan’s 1st term 1984, social programmes seen budget cut 25%, > 1m helped by FED gov lost their benefits
• Reagan didn’t try to overturn Roe vs Wade legalising abortion; 1980s huge increases in attacks on abortion clinics by pro-life
groups such as ‘Operation Rescue’ run by Randall Terry; 164 major arson + bombing cases at clinics + doctors offices took place
between 1982-95
• Reagan only appointed 3 women to his cabinet over 8 years; Sandra Day O’Connor 1st female Supreme Court judge
AIDS epidemic
• 1985: >4k persons died due to AIDS; 1989: the Centre for Disease Control reported >46k AIDS deaths + 800k Americans affected
• Smaller no. Americans who equated homosexuality with deviancy saw AIDS as a form of divine or natural retribution; view
expressed 1983 by columnist Patrick J. Buchanan: ‘the poor homosexuals, declared war on nature + now nature exacting an
awful retribution’
• 1989: FED gov spent $2.3bn pa on research + AIDS prevention
• Black Americans made up 50% of the 50k new cases pa, despite only compromising 12% of the population
Growth of an underclass
• Urban Institute (1980 census data): 57% families with children in the underclass neighbourhoods headed by a single parent who
was the mother (US average 17%)
• 42% of teenagers in such neighbourhoods dropped out of school (US average 14%)
• 1987: illegitimacy rate NY’s central Harlem >80% + 2 in 5 ‘fatherless’ babies born to teenage mothers
• 1980: >500k-4m black + Hispanics chiefly located in inner cities
• Occurred due to process shifting economic resources + opportunities from manufacturing to service sector, inter0regionally
from North to South + West + locally from central cities to suburbs (an out migration ironically facilitated by victories of civil
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