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Social security research: the relation of research and policy planning in a government agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2019

Ida C. Merriam
Ida C. Merriam*
Affiliation:
Social Security Administration, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
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Extract

The complexities of modern post-industrial society have forced upon governments, regardless of their political structure or ideology, a large measure of planning, and of active intervention in the operations of the economy and the organization of community services. If such planning is to be effective, it requires an information base, continuing analysis of trends and relationships, and evaluation of results or ‘outcomes’. A question of growing importance is what forms of research organization can best meet these needs. At issue are the relation between basic or theoretical and applied or task-oriented research, the links between data collection, analysis and research, the modes of interaction between research and policy-making, the balancing of immediate relevance and the long-term view, and the safeguarding of objectivity and independence in matters of vital importance to the political process.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 289 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 See Federal Funds for Research, Development and Other Scientific Activities, Fiscal Years 1969, 1970 and 1971, National Science Foundation, Surveys of Science Resource Series, vol. xix, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970.

2 The literature is voluminous. For general background and good bibliographies, see Gene M. Lyons, The Uneasy Partnership: Social Science and the Federal Government in the 20th Century, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1969; ‘Social Science and the Federal Government’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1971.

3 For a perceptive analysis see Charles L. Schultze, The Politics and Economics of Public Spending, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1968. For a favourable report, see Alice Rivlin, Systematic Thinking for Social Action, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1971; and for a compendium of views, The Analysis and Evaluation of Public Expenditures: The PPB System, Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 3 vols., 1969.

4 Social Security Act, Section 702.

5 In the first organization charts, the designation was Research and Planning. The name was changed because of ‘the rising antipathy among businessmen toward the word planning’, according to two political scientists who were observing the new agency: Charles McKinley and Robert W. Frase, Launching Social Security: A Capture and Record Account 1935-1937, University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

6 Decided in 1937, in 301 U.S. 495, 548, 619.

7 The originally independent Social Security Board was placed under a newly created Federal Security Administration in 1939. The three-man bipartisan Board was replaced by the Social Security Administration in 1946. The Federal Security Administration was succeeded by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953.

8 As of May 1972.

9 Social Security Board Administrative Order No. 55, ‘Organization and Conduct of Research and Statistical Activities’, 31 January 1941.

10 See Arthur Altmeyer, The Formative Years of Social Security, pp. 164-8, for a discussion of the various factors involved, centring around the relations between Congress and the Executive when the two are controlled by different parties with very different policy perspectives.

11 Created in 1963 and called the Office of Program Evaluation and Planning - a name which would probably not have been chosen had the office been set up after the advent of PPBS.

12 Wholey, Joseph S. et al. Federal Evaluation Policy, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., 1971, p. 78.Google Scholar

13 Lenore Epstein, Janet Murray et al. The Aged Population of the U.S., Research Report No. 19, SSA, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1967. Preliminary findings were presented in a series of articles in the Social Security Bulletin, beginning with March 1964.

14 The final monograph is not yet completed. A series of articles presenting findings from the survey have appeared in the Social Security Bulletin, starting with Lawrence Haber, ‘Identifying the Disabled: Concepts and Methods in the Measurement of Disability’, December 1967. The only earlier nationwide socio-economic survey of the disabled in the U.S. was the National Health Survey of 1935-6, financed by the Works Progress Administration, which obtained limited information on family composition, income level, etc. (SSA Bureau Memorandum No. 61, June 1945.)

15 Because of the use of private fiscal intermediaries as administrative agents and the reimbursement of beneficiaries for expenses already incurred, there is a very long time-lag in the receipt and processing of information centrally.

16 See Howard West, ‘Five Years of Medicare - A Statistical Review’, Social Security Bulletin, December 1971.

17 ‘A Budget for an Elderly Couple’, Social Security Administration, Bureau of Research and Statistics, Memorandum No. 67, 1948 and Social Security Bulletin, February 1948.

18 Mollie Orshansky, ‘Children of the Poor’, Social Security Bulletin, July 1963; ‘Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile’, Social Security Bulletin, January 1965; ‘Who's Who Among the Poor: A Demographic View of Poverty’, Social Security Bulletin, July 1965, and articles in the Social Security Bulletin in later years.

19 See Ida C. Merriam and Alfred M. Skolnik, Social Welfare Expenditures Under Public Programs, 1929-66, Research Report No. 25, Social Security Administration, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968, and annual articles in the Social Security Bulletin.

20 See annual articles by Dorothy Rice and Barbara Cooper in the Social Security Bulletin, usually January issue.

21 See, e.g., Benjamin Bridges, ‘Current Redistributional Effects of Old-Age Income Assurance Programs’, Compendium of Papers on Old-Age Income Assurance, Joint Economic Committee, 90th Congress, 1st Session, Washington, GPO, 1968; James H. Schulz, ‘The Economic Status of the Retired Aged in 1980: Simulation Projections’, ORS Research Report No. 24, Washington, GPO, 1968.

22 While this is not the most important element of continuity, it may be worth noting that there have been only five research directors in 35 years: Walton Hamilton, an economist who had been Director of the Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Politics, 1936-7; Ewan Clague, later Director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 1937 to 1940; Isadore S. Falk, who had been Director of Research for the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care (1927-32) and was later Professor at the Yale School of Public Health, from 1940 to 1954; Wilbur J. Cohen, long-time Assistant to the Chairman of the Social Security Board and later Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, from 1954-6; and Ida C. Merriam, who took her graduate degree in economics under Hamilton and served as Deputy to both Falk and Cohen, from 1956 to 1972.

23 The Committee ceased to exist as a result of the tight controls on advisory committees of all types instituted by the Department and White House in 1969.

24 See ‘Three Decades of Social Security Research Publishing’, Social Security Bulletin, March 1968, for major publications to that date.