Social Work 531 - Introduction to Social Welfare & Policy

Congress.gov is the official source for federal legislative information including Congressional bills, Public Laws, & Congressional Record from 101st Congress (1989) forward;

Find Bills by Subject and Policy Area provides guidance for using subjects in your research.

Use the policy area browse page to find bills and resolutions by policy area. An alphabetical list of Policy Area terms. The number in brackets next to a policy area is the number of bills and resolutions currently indexed under that term. Consult the Policy Area Term Vocabulary for a complete list of policy area terms and their definitions (scope notes).

A complete list of policy area terms and their definitions (scope notes). One of 32 broad policy area terms is assigned to every bill and resolution by legislative analysts in the Congressional Research Service upon the release of official text by the Government Publishing Office.

An alphabetical list of legislative subject terms including approximately 1,000 subjects, geographic entities, and organization names. Terms from this list are assigned to bills and resolutions after close examination by legislative analysts from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). One or more than one term may be assigned to describe a measure's substance and effects.

The codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States, divided by broad subjects into 53 titles.

Every public and private law passed by Congress is published in the Statutes at Large, in order of the date it was enacted into law.

The table is divided into four segments: United States Code citations, United States Statutes at Large citations, public law citations, and Presidential document citations. Within each segment the citations are arranged in numerical order:
For the United States Code, by title and section;
For the United States Statutes at Large, by volume and page number;
For Public Laws, by number; and
For Presidential documents (Proclamations, Executive orders, and Reorganization plans), by document number.

Free online access to official government publications including Congressional reports, bills from 1993 to the present, the History of Bills, and older Supreme Court cases, as well as the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), U.S. Statutes and the U.S. Code.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a federal legislative branch agency located within the Library of Congress, provides research reports on a broad range of national policy issues for Congress.

This site provide integrated, searchable access to many of the full-text CRS reports that have been available at a variety of different web sites since 1990 as well as converted print material.

Official site for both the House and Senate. Access bills, laws, and administrative regulations.

A think tank to examine policy issues "that relate to the work of social workers." The site features news, press releases, and research reports.

The collection documents the history of social welfare in the United States.

Link to NASW Advocacy, which includes legislative alerts, updates and key federal & state issues. Select the Washington Update link.

Produced by P. W. Martin, Cornell Law School. Last revised in Fall 2016.