North America’s Divide - The Political Geography of Inequality - page 130

coverage, and the provisions for the administration of the system. Two aspects
are particularly noteworthy: the LaFollette amendment in the Senate and the
evolution of provisions on coverage.
The original version of the bill granted states freedom to design their unem-
ployment insurance provision. However, reforms introduced in the House lim-
ited the number of designs the unemployment insurance program could take on
grounds of accounting efficiency. This meant, among other things, that states
were no longer permitted to adopt or maintain systems of industry or plant
reserves. Should this provision have passed, the Wisconsin system would have
had to be reformed. As one of the pioneers of unemployment insurance in the
United States, Wisconsin fought to protect the system they thought best served
their economy. Senator Robert La Follette Jr., junior senator from Wisconsin
and member of the Progressive Party, successfully introduced an amendment to
restore the original provision. Paradoxically, to protect the early developments
in unemployment insurance, he facilitated the task of those who wanted to
ensure as late and weak a policy as possible. Southern states were also success-
ful in limiting federal control over implementation logistics. They succeeded in
abolishing the requirement of meeting the Federal Standards of Personnel and
organizing payments only via public employment offices (see the Administra-
tion section in Table 5.4 ).
The introduction of specific provisions excluding agricultural workers from
the unemployment insurance system highlights even more clearly the weight of
the South as the political engine beneath the process. Alston and Ferrie ( 1999 :
49-75) argue that Roosevelt and the CES were aware of this and managed
to anticipate potential objections when they decided 1) to exclude firms with
less than four workers and 2) reclassify croppers and tenants as agricultural
workers. They thought both measures would be enough to keep the system of
labor relations in the South unaffected by the new unemployment insurance
system. Southern democrats wanted more guarantees (Brinkley 1984 ; Whatley
1983 : 905-930) wanted more guarantees though, hence the specific changes
introduced both in the House and the Senate, on the threshold of exclusion
and, more directly, on the occupational categories left out of the program.
After these changes, the Social Security Act constituted no threat. 17
The key for Southern Paternalism to work was the mutual dependency
between planters and tenants/croppers. So when, in the context of the Depres-
sion, several federal relief and insurance programs (including unemployment
17 An even more straightforward example is offered by the changes in old-age insurance legisla-
tion. Southern Democrats managed to erase from the Social Security Act any paragraph that
potentially could lead to the inclusion of “negroes” in the program. So, for instance, they erased
from the Act a special old age insurance program recommended by the CES. They also elimi-
nated a general requirement in the law according to which “assistance could not be denied to
any US citizen.” However, during the post WWII period, old age social security was much faster
than unemployment insurance in abandoning these restrictions. For instance, the inclusion of
agricultural and domestic workers did not occur until 1976. For a systematic analysis of the
racial effects of unemployment insurance, see King ( 1995 , 2007); and Lieberman ( 1998 ).