McCabe, Joshua T. The Fiscalization of Social Policy: How Taxpayers Trumped Children in the Fight against Child Poverty (Oxford University Press, 2018). 248 pp. $50.80, ISBN‐13: 978‐0190841300

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Christopher Wimer
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13316

Book Reviews 1143

McCabe, Joshua T. The Fiscalization of Social Policy: How

Taxpayers Trumped Children in the Fight against Child

Poverty (Oxford University Press, 2018). 248 pp. $50.80,

ISBN-13: 978-0190841300

In The Fiscalization of Social Policy, the sociologist

Joshua T. McCabe traces and analyzes the

development of social policy support for families

with children across Canada, the United Kingdom,

and the United States from before World War II to

the present. In all three countries, the tax system

has become a more important vehicle for delivering

cash benefits to families and children. The book

documents and tries to explain the shift to the tax

system to deliver benefits to children and their

families, which McCabe dubs the “fiscalization

of social policy.” McCabe contends that his work

addresses two major puzzles regarding the trajectories

and development of these policies. First, “How were

policymakers able to expand these programs in an

otherwise austere environment?” (3). Second, why

were Canada and the United Kingdom able to target

child benefits to the most disadvantaged children

(through universal benefits), while the United States

was only successful in targeting child benefits to the

working poor?

To address these puzzles, McCabe focuses on

historical comparative analysis of key periods in the

development and expansions of these benefits across

the three countries. These include: the 1940s before

and after World War II as each country reckoned

with how best to provide family or child allowances

Reviewed by: Christopher Wimer

Columbia University

Christopher Wimer is co-director of

the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at

Columbia University. His work focuses on

the measurement of income and poverty

and the role of antipoverty policies in the

lives of disadvantaged individuals and

families.

E-mail: cwimer@gmail.com