The Use and Abuse of

Abstract

Social Security: Beyond the Rhetoric of Crisis, edited by Theodore R. Marmor and Jerry L. Mashaw." Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. 249 pages. $35.00 cloth; $12.50 paper. In his memoir entitled Growing Up, Russell Baker describes the experience of being raised during the Depression in a family with no father or breadwinner. His father, a rural stonemason, died in 1931, leaving behind some Sears Roebuck furniture, the proceeds of a modest life insurance policy, three small children, and a 33-year-old widow with no apparent prospects of employment. To keep most of her young family together, Baker's mother gave up one infant for adoption and moved with her remaining two children hundreds of miles to live under the roof of a more prosperous relative. The Depression did not end for the Baker family until nine years later, when Mrs. Baker took a second husband-fortunately, one with a job.