See also the guide for Social Welfare 220: Introduction to Social Policy
Encyclopedia of Social Work from the National Association of Social Workers and Oxford University Press -- a great starting place, policy on many social work topics.
Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare Contains many sections on Social Policy and Policy Practice.
The Green Book (2018) is a key resource for federal programs. It provides updated statistics and information on programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Foster Care and welfare. Additionally, it includes a discussion of related issues, such as the well-being of the elderly and of children and families.
USAspending.gov Official source for spending data for the U.S. Government. It allows you to drill down to specific areas, including by agency or sub-sections such as Social Services.
Congressional Publications contains congressional documents (hearings, committee prints, documents, and legislative histories) which are searchable through this fulltext database.
CRS Research Reports are particularly helpful for overviews of federal policies on an array of topics. The current reports are also now freely available from the Library of Congress!
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis) Fulltext searchable database of law reviews, cases and statutes.
MetaLib and USA.gov are two ways to search a variety of US Government sources with lots of information on social policies at the federal level, the Think Tank Search from Harvard is another useful search engine.
Oxford Handbook of U. S. Social Policy
The American welfare state has long been a source of political contention and academic debate. This Oxford Handbook pulls together much of our current knowledge about the origins, development, functions, and challenges of American social policy. After the Introduction, the first substantive part of the handbook offers an historical overview of U.S. social policy from the colonial era to the present. This is followed by a set of chapters on different theoretical perspectives available for understanding and explaining the development of U.S. social policy. The three following parts of the volume focus on concrete social programs for the elderly, the poor and near-poor, the disabled, and workers and families. Policy areas covered include health care, pensions, food assistance, housing, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, workers' compensation, family support, and programs for soldiers and veterans. The final part of the book focuses on some of the consequences of the U.S. welfare state for poverty, inequality, and citizenship. Many of the chapters comprising this handbook emphasize the disjointed patterns of policy making inherent to U.S. policymaking and the public-private mix of social provision in which the government helps certain groups of citizens directly (e.g., social insurance) or indirectly (e.g., tax expenditures, regulations). The contributing authors are experts from political science, sociology, history, economics, and other social sciences.
News sources can be a great way to find information about federal and state social policies. There are numerous sources of fulltext news, some available freely on the web. The ones below are just a few of the databases that we pay for, they each have specialized features.
