University of North Carolina Press
From Welfare to Workfare: The Unintended Consequences of Liberal Reform, 1945-1965
From Welfare to Workfare: The Unintended Consequences of Liberal Reform, 1945-1965
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In 1996, Democratic president Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress ended welfare as we know it and trumpeted workfare as a dramatic break from the past. But, in fact, workfare was not new. Jennifer Mittelstadt locates the roots of the 1996 welfare reform many decades in the past, arguing that women, work, and welfare were intertwined concerns of the liberal welfare state beginning just after World War II.
Mittelstadt examines the dramatic reform of Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) from the 1940s through the 1960s, demonstrating that in this often misunderstood period, national policy makers did not overlook issues of poverty, race, and women's role in society. Liberals' public debates and disagreements over welfare, however, caused unintended consequences, she argues, including a shift toward conservatism. Rather than leaving ADC as an income support program for needy mothers, reformers recast it as a social services program aimed at rehabilitating women from dependence on welfare to independence, largely by encouraging them to work. Mittelstadt reconstructs the ideology, implementation, and consequences of rehabilitation, probing beneath its surface to reveal gendered and racialized assumptions about the welfare poor and broader societal concerns about poverty, race, family structure, and women's employment.
Author: Jennifer Mittelstadt
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 03/07/2005
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780807855874
Mittelstadt examines the dramatic reform of Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) from the 1940s through the 1960s, demonstrating that in this often misunderstood period, national policy makers did not overlook issues of poverty, race, and women's role in society. Liberals' public debates and disagreements over welfare, however, caused unintended consequences, she argues, including a shift toward conservatism. Rather than leaving ADC as an income support program for needy mothers, reformers recast it as a social services program aimed at rehabilitating women from dependence on welfare to independence, largely by encouraging them to work. Mittelstadt reconstructs the ideology, implementation, and consequences of rehabilitation, probing beneath its surface to reveal gendered and racialized assumptions about the welfare poor and broader societal concerns about poverty, race, family structure, and women's employment.
Author: Jennifer Mittelstadt
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 03/07/2005
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780807855874
About the Author
Jennifer Mittelstadt is assistant professor of history and women's studies at Pennsylvania State University.
