American Poverty in a New Era of Reform - Softcover

Rodgers, Harrell R.

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9780765606266: American Poverty in a New Era of Reform

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765606267 ISBN 13: 9780765606266

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

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The welfare reform plan enacted in the USA in August 1996 was designed to assist as many of the poor as possible to become self-reliant, secure, and economically productive. This book focuses on the implementation and initial results of that reform.

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From the Back Cover:

The U.S. poverty rate today is about 13.3 percent. This modest statistic translates to some 35 million people -- greater than the total population of California, almost twice the population of Texas.

Clearly, American society has a stake in assisting as many of the poor as possible to become self-reliant, secure, and economically productive. This was the goal of the most comprehensive major public policy change in recent American history, the welfare reform plan enacted in August 1996.

In this book Harrell Rodgers offers a carefully documented assessment of poverty in America and the initial impacts of welfare reform -- which, fortunately, has been implemented during a period of economic expansion and low unemployment. He also underscores the importance of backing up welfare reform with policies that support families' efforts to make genuine, sustainable, long-term improvements in their lives and the prospects of their children.

From Library Journal:

Rodgers (political science, Univ. of Houston), the well-regarded author of a multitude of writings on poverty and social welfare programs, examines results of the welfare reform plan that was enacted in 1996. He considers every aspect of welfare reform in a clear, concise, and well-documented manner, examining income and expenditure data broken down by age group, sex, educational level, number of children, marital status, and specific location. He imparts the good news that not only does welfare reform appear to be working to reduce welfare rolls but across the boards each state has seen a more rapid decline than anticipated. However, he validly cautions that this phenomenon is still far from understood as too little is known about what has happened to the people who are no longer on welfare. He maintains that the bigger question is not whether we can make welfare reform work, but whether we can eliminate poverty. Though he remains skeptical about eliminating poverty, he posits that it may be more realistic to approach improvements to poverty by degrees. Recommended for sociology collections in academic and large public libraries.DSandra Isaacson, US EPA/OAO Corp., Las Vegas, NV
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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