Social provisioning benefitting low-income working families at the beginning of the twenty-first century face formidable obstacles in light of the collapse of the housing market and the accompanying financial crisis that began at the end of 2007 and continued through much if not all of 2009 (the official month or quarter marking the end of the recession has yet to be announced at the time of this writing in early 2010) (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2010) A primary political concern at the national level is job creation, as the unemployment rate hovers around 10% and as millions of unemployed persons, especially men in general and Black males in particular, face the prospect of ever longer spells of joblessness In January 2010 some 63 million Americans were unemployed for 6 months or longer, the largest number since 1948 when the government began keeping track (Goodman, 2010a; Hennepin County, 2002; Myers, 2006; Office of Management and Budget [OMB], 2010) A related concern further complicating the prospects for social provisions benefitting low-income working families is the federal deficit, 106% of GDP in 2010, the highest percentage since 1946 (it peaked at 281% in 1943 during World War II) (Chantrill, 2010), along with the national debt, $12 trillion deeper than in 2001 (OMB, 2010)

Policy Challenges Ahead

It is an honour and a pleasure to be asked to participate in a Festschrift in Professor George F. Rohrlich's honour. Professor Rohrlich had a profound effect on my life. I was in my second and final year of the Master in Social Work Programme at the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration, when I took Rohrlich's course in Comparative Approaches to Social Security. He not only kindl‐ed what has become my lifelong desire to study social security institutions, but he also convinced me that if I aspired to be a first‐rate social policy analyst and planner (which from my perspective meant that if I aspired to be a first‐rate social work practitioner in that area), I would have to become a competent economist along the way. What is more, he told me he had every confidence that I could do it. Hearing this from a man who by then was a father figure to me gave me sufficient faith in myself to try.

Irv Garfinkel

Papers

The Role of Universal Demogrants and Child Support in Social Security Reform