Download or read book The Welfare Debate written by Robert Emmet Long and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the effectiveness of the current welfare system and possible reforms.

Download or read book The Welfare Debate written by Greg M. Shaw and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-09-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welfare politics have now been part of American life for four centuries. Beyond a persistent general idea that Americans have a collective obligation to provide for the poorest among us, there has been little common ground on which to forge political and philosophical consensus. Are poor people poor because of their own shortcomings and moral failings, or because of systemic societal and economic obstacles? That is, does poverty have individual or structural causes? This book demonstrates why neither of these two polemical stances has been able to prevail permanently over the other and explores the public policy—and real-life—consequences of the stalemate. Author Greg M. Shaw pays special attention to the outcome of the 1996 act that was heralded as ending welfare as we know it. Historically, people on all sides of the welfare issue have hated welfare—but for different reasons. Like our forebears, we have constantly disagreed about where to strike the balance between meeting the basic needs of the very poor and creating dependency, or undermining individual initiative. The shift in 1996 from New Deal welfare entitlement to workfare mirrored the national mood and ascendant political ideology, as had welfare policy throughout American history. The special contribution of this book is to show how evolving understandings of four key issues—markets, motherhood, race, and federalism—have shaped public perceptions in this contentious debate. A rich historical narrative is here complemented by a sophisticated analytical understanding of the forces at work behind attempts to solve the welfare dilemma. How should we evaluate the current welfare-to-work model? Is a precipitous decline in state welfare caseloads sufficient evidence of success? Success, this book finds, has many measures, and ending welfare as an entitlement program has not ended arguments about how best to protect children from the ravages of poverty or how to address the plight of the most vulnerable among us.

Download or read book Welfare Debate written by Kekla Magoon and published by ABDO Publishing Company. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives readers a balanced look at the issue of welfare and its surrounding arguments. The Welfare Debate familiarizes readers with the background of the welfare system, the key players and issues within the debate, and the welfare reforms of the 1990s. Current welfare strategies, including funding and distribution, as well as future solutions, are introduced as well. Color photos and informative sidebars accompany easy-to-follow text. Features include a timeline, facts, additional resources, web sites, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.

Download or read book Exploring welfare debates written by Gregory, Lee and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2018-05-16 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visually and pedagogically rich, this wide-ranging introduction to key concepts and debates in welfare uses an innovative, question-based narrative to highlight the importance of theory to understanding welfare. In particular, it: • Introduces concepts that are core to how policy is formulated and implemented. • Provides students with a comprehensive vocabulary and toolkit for analysing policy examples and developing social science arguments. • Includes stimulus material, diagrams, critical thinking activities, further reading lists and a companion website containing further policy examples, podcasts and class activities. Written by an experienced and inspiring lecturer, this book is suitablefor undergraduate students of social policy, sociology, politics, public policy, social work, health and social care, particularly those taking courses on ‘welfare theory’,‘principles of social policy’, ‘key issues in welfare policy’ and similar.Using some of the hottest current debates about the problems and benefits of state-funded welfare, this book develops students’ social science understanding and analytic skills.

Download or read book Perspectives on Welfare written by Alan Deacon and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 2002-03-16 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Of the several discussions of the American poverty theorists I have read, this is easily the best. Anyone interested in that debate should begin here." - Professor Lawrence M. Mead, New York University "...a compelling guide to the ideas that have shaped and seek to re-shape welfare provision. This is a student text that teachers will want to read first." - Professor Robert Walker, University of Nottingham How do welfare benefits and services shape the attitudes, behaviour and character of claimants? Should entitlement be dependent upon good behaviour? What are the major intellectual influences upon current welfare reforms in the UK and the US? Is it possible to reform welfare in ways which tackle both social inequality and welfare dependency? This lucid and engaging book provides an introduction to the current debates about the future direction of welfare reform on both sides of the Atlantic. The first part outlines a range of different perspectives on welfare, and shows how each of these perspectives rests upon a different assumption about the role and purpose of welfare policy and a different understanding of human nature and motivation. Some of these perspectives see the primary role of welfare as to reduce inequalities, while others see the central objective as the reduction of welfare dependency. The second part shows how the current debates in Britain and the United States are informed by these perspectives, and argues that debates about inequality and dependency are not mutually exclusive but address different dimensions of the same problem. In all, this illuminating and forward-looking text is essential reading for courses in social policy, health, and social welfare, as well as those with a political and wider interest in welfare reform.

Download or read book The Welfare Debate of 1978 written by Gordon Lee Weil and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Informing the Welfare Debate written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Politics of Disgust written by Ange-Marie Hancock and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2004-12-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2006 Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Organized Section Best First Book Award from the American Political Science Association Winner of the 2006 W.E.B. DuBois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists Ange-Marie Hancock argues that longstanding beliefs about poor African American mothers were the foundation for the contentious 1996 welfare reform debate that effectively "ended welfare as we know it." By examining the public identity of the so-called welfare queen and its role in hindering democratic deliberation, The Politics of Disgust shows how stereotypes and politically motivated misperceptions about race, class and gender were effectively used to instigate a politics of disgust. The ongoing role of the politics of disgust in welfare policy is revealed here by using content analyses of the news media, the 1996 congressional floor debates, historical evidence and interviews with welfare recipients themselves. Hancock's incisive analysis is both compelling and disturbing, suggesting the great limits of today's democracy in guaranteeing not just fair and equitable policy outcomes, but even a fair chance for marginalized citizens to participate in the process.

Download or read book Winning the Welfare Debate written by Peter Lilley and published by . This book was released on 1995-01 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Welfare Realities written by Mary Jo Bane and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Jo Bane and David T. Ellwood examine the welfare system - its recipients, its providers and the many policy ideas surrounding it. Focusing on the AFDC Programme (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), they identify three models that have been used to explain welfare dependency and test them against an accumulating body of evidence, offering suggestions for identifying potential long-term recipients so that resources can be targeted to encourage self-sufficiency. Finally, they review policy options.

Download or read book The Big Society Debate written by Armine Ishkanian and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Before the 2010 General Election, David Cameron placed the "Big Society" at the heart of his efforts to rebuild Britain's "broken society". The essays in this volume probe the historical origins of the concept and seek to evaluate it in the light of both historical and contemporary evidence. They raise profound questions about the provenance of the "Big Society" and its relevance to contemporary social concerns. They should be of interest to anyone who cares about the past, present or future of British social policy.' Bernard Harris, University of Southampton, UK'There is nothing new about the notion of a Big Society. This book combines historical scholarship, international research and grassroots experience to shine a critical spotlight on the rhetoric behind the coalition government's big idea.' Bill Jordan, University of Plymouth, UK'Armine Ishkanian and Simon Szreter's fascinating book provides important insights into the way political elites use slogans and imagery to sway public opinion on social policy issues. This highly original work will be a major scholarly resource for years to come.' James Midgley, University of California, Berkeley, USThe expert contributors to this detailed yet concise book collectively raise questions about the novelty of the Big Society Agenda, its ideological underpinnings, and challenges it poses for policymakers and practitioners.The book is divided into two sections, history and policy, which together provide readers with a historically grounded, internationally informed, and multidisciplinary analysis of the Big Society policies. The introduction and conclusion tie the strands together, providing a coherent analysis of the key issues in both sections. Various chapters in this study examine the limitations and consider the challenges involved in translating the ideas of the Big Society agenda into practice.By drawing on international examples, from developed and developing countries in order to analyse and discuss Big Society policies, this book will prove invaluable for students, academics and policymakers.

Download or read book Living on the Edge written by Mark R. Rank and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on ten years of research, the book follows individuals and families as they apply for and live on public aid and eventually leave the system. Rank's chronicle of their day-to-day experiences reveals the many sacrifices and crises that tax ordinary people in extraordinary ways. Beginning with a history of welfare from Roosevelt to Clinton, he focuses on AFDC and the Food Stamp program. He then describes the backgrounds of the recipients, their hopes for the future and attitudes toward welfare, their daily routines and problems, their work behavior, and the effect of welfare on family dynamics. Living on the Edge reveals the experiences of female-headed families, married couples, single men and women, and the elderly.

Download or read book The New World of Welfare written by Rebecca M. Blank and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congress must reauthorize the sweeping 1996 welfare reform legislation by October 1, 2002. A number of issues that were prominent in the 1995-96 battle over welfare reform are likely to resurface in the debate over reauthorization. Among those issues are the five-year time limit, provisions to reduce out-of-wedlock births, the adequacy of child care funding, problems with Medicaid and food stamp receipt by working families, and work requirements. Funding levels are also certain to be controversial. Fiscal conservatives will try to lower grant spending levels, while states will seek to maintain them and gain additional discretion in the use of funds. Finally, a movement to encourage states to promote marriage among low-income families is already taking shape. The need for reauthorization presents an opportunity to assess what welfare reform has accomplished and what remains to be done. The New World of Welfare is an attempt to frame the policy debate for reauthorization, and to inform the policy discussion among the states and at the federal level, especially by drawing lessons from research on the effects of welfare reform. In the book, a diverse set of welfare experts—liberal and conservative, academic and nonacademic—engage in rigorous debate on topics ranging from work experience programs, to job availability, to child well-being, to family formation. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on welfare reform, the contributors cover subjects including work and wages, effects of reform on family income and poverty, the politics of conservative welfare reform, sanctions and time limits, financial work incentives for low-wage earners, the use of medicaid and food stamps, welfare-to-work, child support, child care, and welfare reform and immigration. Preparation of the volume was supported by funds from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

Download or read book Welfare Policymaking in the States written by Pamela Winston and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2002-02-28 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now that responsibility for welfare policy has devolved from Washington to the states, Pamela Winston examines how the welfare policymaking process has changed. Under the welfare reform act of 1996, welfare was the first and most basic safety net program to be sent back to state control. Will the shift help or further diminish programs for low-income people, especially the millions of children who comprise the majority of the poor in the United States? In this book, Winston probes the nature of state welfare politics under devolution and contrasts it with welfare politics on the national level. Starting with James Madison's argument that the range of perspectives and interests found in state policymaking will be considerably narrower than in Washington, she analyzes the influence of interest groups and other key actors in the legislative process at both the state and national levels. She compares the legislative process during the 104th Congress (1995-96) with that in three states — Maryland, Texas, and North Dakota — and finds that the debates in the states saw a more limited range of participants, with fewer of them representing poor people, and fewer competing ideas. The welfare reform bill of 1996 comes up for renewal in 2002. At stake in the U.S. experiment in welfare reform are principles of equal opportunity, fairness, and self-determination as well as long-term concerns for political and social stability. This investigation of the implications of the changing pattern of welfare politics will interest scholars and teachers of social policy, federalism, state politics, and public policy generally, and general readers interested in social policy, state politics, social justice, and American politics.

Download or read book A Political History of the American Welfare System written by Brendon O'Connor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Maynard Keynes once noted that "Madmen in authority... are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." O'Connor (politics and public policy, Griffith U., Australia) supports this observation in his study of the development of the American welfare system and the broader world of political language and rhetoric within which it has been shaped. Studying welfare policy from Lyndon Johnson's liberal social agenda to Bill Clinton's "ending welfare as we know it," he divides the period (and his book) into three sections corresponding to welfare politics that conformed to liberal ideology, the conservative backlash against liberalism, and the forging of a conservative welfare system. Annotation 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Download or read book Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform written by Sanford F. Schram and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's hard to imagine discussing welfare policy without discussing race, yet all too often this uncomfortable factor is avoided or simply ignored. Sometimes the relationship between welfare and race is treated as so self-evident as to need no further attention; equally often, race in the context of welfare is glossed over, lest it raise hard questions about racism in American society as a whole. Either way, ducking the issue misrepresents the facts and misleads the public and policy-makers alike. Many scholars have addressed specific aspects of this subject, but until now there has been no single integrated overview. Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform is designed to fill this need and provide a forum for a range of voices and perspectives that reaffirm the key role race has played--and continues to play--in our approach to poverty. The essays collected here offer a systematic, step-by-step approach to the issue. Part 1 traces the evolution of welfare from the 1930s to the sweeping Clinton-era reforms, providing a historical context within which to consider today's attitudes and strategies. Part 2 looks at media representation and public perception, observing, for instance, that although blacks accounted for only about one-third of America's poor from 1967 to 1992, they featured in nearly two-thirds of news stories on poverty, a bias inevitably reflected in public attitudes. Part 3 discusses public discourse, asking questions like "Whose voices get heard and why?" and "What does 'race' mean to different constituencies?" For although "old-fashioned" racism has been replaced by euphemism, many of the same underlying prejudices still drive welfare debates--and indeed are all the more pernicious for being unspoken. Part 4 examines policy choices and implementation, showing how even the best-intentioned reform often simply displaces institutional inequities to the individual level--bias exercised case by case but no less discriminatory in effect. Part 5 explores the effects of welfare reform and the implications of transferring policy-making to the states, where local politics and increasing use of referendum balloting introduce new, often unpredictable concerns. Finally, Frances Fox Piven's concluding commentary, "Why Welfare Is Racist," offers a provocative response to the views expressed in the pages that have gone before--intended not as a "last word" but rather as the opening argument in an ongoing, necessary, and newly envisioned national debate. Sanford Schram is Visiting Professor of Social Work and Social Research, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Joe Soss teaches in the Department of Government at the Graduate school of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, D.C. Richard Fording is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky.

Download or read book Informing the Welfare Debate written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: