This essay contrasts the careers of Robert Ball and Wilbur Cohen, two American public administrators who have devoted fifty years to America's social insurance institutions, with other types of public actors, especially the in and outer rising spirally across departments, policies and administrations. America's separation of powers and federalism reward with influence those who combine entrepreneurial energy, long-term program commitment, and managerial skill; other political structures provide different patterns of opportunities and constraints. It then applies this perspective to Ball and Cohen's participation in three periods of American social policy history: the formation of federal social insurance policy (1935 to 1950); the expansion period (1950–1970); and the turbulent period of stagflation and fiscal stress (1972 to the present).

There are good reasons to suppose that the non-poor will infiltrate welfare programmes originally targeted on the poor. This paper discusses this phenomenon of ‘creeping universalisation’ and provides a number of possible explanations for it. Evidence is used from Australia to show that creeping universalisation does indeed occur, and to test the competing explanations. It is concluded that the most likely explanation for the phenomenon is individual behavioural responses: that is, the non-poor respond to the imposition of a means-test by re-arranging their affairs, legitimately or illegitimately, so as to pass the test.

Though each of the capitalist democracies has developed a similar battery of programs for mitigating labor market problems, politically significant differences in strategy underlie superficial similarities. By the 1970s, labor market strategies could be distinguished by three models: a passive social democratic or guardian strategy (Britain), an active social democratic or egalitarian strategy (Sweden), and a passive neo-liberal or business-centered strategy (United States). In response to high unemployment, the Thatcher government has resurrected a long dormant fourth strategy that combines neo-liberal principles with an active state. This active neo-liberal or market-centered approach seeks a workforce that is less organised, has greater wage disparities, and is more adaptable to business needs. The government's activism is evident in the growth of the Manpower Services Commission, both in absolute terms and relative to passive compensatory measures. Its neo-liberalism is evident in reducing structural impediments to lower wages, increasing incentives for individual initiative, and revamping employment and training schemes along neo-liberal lines. These efforts correlate with decreasing levels of union membership, increasing self-employment, and increasing wage disparities in the British economy, trends that are, by the government's criteria, improvements.

The influence of demographic factors on public policy is well recognised, but the impact of policies other than population policy on demographic behaviour is generally ignored. The paper discusses the effects of various aspects of social policy on marriage, fertility, divorce and household formation behaviour. While the focus is on Great Britain, examples from other countries and cross-national comparisons are employed in the analysis. It measures the effects of particular policies in order to show that the impact of social policies on family formation and dissolution is not just a theoretical possibility. They have significant influences on important aspects of the way in which we live, and in most cases these demographic effects were not recognised by policy makers.