Poverty in the United States Developing Social Welfare Policy for the Twenty-First Century

by Dobelstein, Andrew W.

• ISBN13: 9781137485472
• ISBN10: 1137485477
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-12-17
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

America's Great Recession has provoked a twenty-first century awareness of her costly social welfare commitments, failure to protect Americans in times of broad-based economic disaster, and longstanding inability to reduce poverty. Arguing that historic social rehabilitation efforts to confront longstanding American poverty have failed, and by concentrating on the cash support obligations America has undertaken, this book refocuses the poverty debate on an overburdened social welfare system deprived of a sufficient political and economic foundation to support its commitments.
American capitalism has refashioned itself to meet today's global economic challenges, often at the expense of economically disadvantaged citizens, while the social welfare system remains chained to principles that fail to narrate American poverty. Economic need is no longer a story of personal failure; poverty has become a macroeconomic construct, and work no longer provides the poor with the path to economic independence. Only by refashioning America's social insurances, her commitments to welfare assistance, and her inadequate efforts to support low wage employment will America join the ranks of companion advanced nations in bringing poverty under control.

Author Biography

Andrew W. Dobelstein, Ph. D. has been associated with the University of North Carolina since 1968. Author of eight books and an authority on social welfare policy, he offers seminars, conducts research in the field of welfare politics, and provides consultation and community service to organizations. The North Carolina Community Action Association awarded him its Outstanding Leadership Award, among other honors, in recognition of his poverty related work.

Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
Part I: Introduction – Poverty: America's Shame
Chapter 1 – Poverty's elusive heredity
Chapter 2 – A New Capitalist order needs a new social welfare mandate
Part II: The Cash Support Programs: New wine in old bottles
Chapter 3 – The Social Insurances
Chapter 4 – The cash support assistance programs
Chapter 5 – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Earned Income Tax Credit
Part III: Integration of social welfare and the American economy to reduce poverty
Chapter 6 – Developing a new social welfare structure
Bibliography