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The impulse to craft universal rather than targeted public policies is natural for a democratically elected leader, accountable to a broad electorate. The conventional wisdom suggests that particular or targeted policies will not garner the same level of support as universal policies. Targeted policies and programs (poorhouses in the 19* Century, mothers' pensions in 1910, the War on Poverty in the 1960s) are likely to be viewed through the prism of zero-sum politics. At a time of perceived scarcity and contracting government budgets, targeted policies may be viewed as favoring some constituent group rather than the public good. If the target group is historically disfavored or considered "undeserving," targeted policies risk being labeled "preferences" for "special interests." In order to avoid alienating voters, policies are often packaged for broad appeal.
As the default alternative to targeted policies, universal policies suffer from a conceptual defect. Universal policies assume a universal norm. Universal programs begin with some conception of what is universal. This conception, in fact, reflects a particular. The Social Security Act, often described as die quintessential universal policy, was universal only insofar as the universal was a white, male, able-bodied worker. In its early years, the elderly were excluded since they had not been in the workforce or in it long enough to qualify. The definition of work excluded women. Under the cultural norms of the era, men were the primary wage-earner, and women typically worked in the home. As a consequence of mscriminatory patterns, they were often kept out most areas of the labor force. Unpaid household labor and child-rearing responsibilities are not counted toward Social Security earnings. Even today, women who take time off to raise children or se- lect careers with more flexible work- ing hours will earn less, on average, than their male counterparts and will tiierefore have lower Social Security benefits upon retirement. And because of exclusions of agricultural and do- mestic workers, since rescinded, ex- clusions built in to appease Southern resistance to the Act, 65 % of African Americans were denied its protections.
As troubling as is the conceptual problem of defining what exactly is meant by "universal," broadly con- ceived universal programs are very likely to exacerbate inequality rather than reduce it. Defined as one of this...