How successful were Reagan and Thatcher's efforts to achieve retrenchment? Answering that question requires a return to the distinction drawn in Chapter 1 between programmatic and systemic retrenchment. Programmatic retrenchment modifies individual sectors of the welfare state; systemic retrenchment modifies the context for future struggles over programs. This distinction illuminates the divergent experiences of Britain and the United States. Different policy areas have offered quite different political opportunities for programmatic retrenchment. There is more variation in the outcomes among particular programs than there is between the overall records of the two countries. In neither country has there been a marked curtailment of social expenditure or a radical shift toward residualization. Nonetheless, programmatic retrenchment generally progressed further in Britain.

If the British Conservatives had only modest success in pursuing programmatic retrenchment, their record in achieving systemic retrenchment was if anything less impressive. Several changes in the political context in Britain have probably weakened the prospects for radical change in the welfare state. Shifts in public opinion, modifications of political institutions, and the restructuring of government finances have all tended to diminish rather than enhance prospects for further retrenchment. The Thatcher government did have some success in reducing the political influence of welfare state supporters – and of unions in particular – but its overall record could not be regarded as one of notable systemic retrenchment. In most respects this was also true in the United States.