For forty years following the passage of the Social Security Act, the United States experienced a liberalization in public policy toward the aged. In the late 1970's, the momentum of this liberalization began to ebb, and by the early 1980's, a shift toward greater restrictiveness was underway. Scholars and journalists often discuss this Reagan-era shift as if it were a unique policy initiative. A case can be made, however, that this is just a recent example of a recurrent pattern of social policy reform and reaction in the history of American politics. This point is illustrated by placing the current policy shift alongside a historically remote period.
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