The Price of Citizenship

by Katz, Michael B.

• ISBN13: 9780812220186
• ISBN10: 0812220188
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-08-15
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr

Summary

For Michael B. Katz, the term "welfare state" describes the intricate web of government programs, employer-provided benefits, and semiprivate organizations intended to promote economic security and to guarantee the basic necessities of life for all citizens: food, shelter, medical care, protection in childhood, and support in old age. In this updated edition of his seminal workThe Price of Citizenship, Katz traces the evolution of the welfare state from colonial relief programs through the war on poverty and into our own age, marked by the "end of welfare as we know it." Katz argues that in the last decades, three great forces--a ferocious war on dependence, which has singled out the most vulnerable; the devolution of authority within both government and the private sector; and the application of market models to social policy--have permeated all aspects of the social contract.The Price of Citizenshipshows how these changes have propelled America toward a future of increased inequality and decreased security as individuals compete for success in an open market with ever fewer protections against misfortune, power, and greed. A new chapter, written for this edition, explains how these trends continue in the post-9/11 era and how the response to Hurricane Katrina exposed the weaknesses of America's social safety net. Offering grounds for modest optimism, the new chapter also points to countervailing trends that may modify and even partially reverse the effects of recent welfare history.

Author Biography

Michael B. Katz is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and a Research Associate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of many books, including One Nation Divisible: What America Was and What It Is Becoming (with Mark J. Stern) and In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Invention of Welfare	p. 1
The American Welfare State	p. 9
Poverty and Inequality in the New American City	p. 33
The Family Support Act and the Illusion of Welfare Reform	p. 57
Governors as Welfare Reformers	p. 77
Urban Social Welfare in an Age of Austerity	p. 104
The Independent Sector, the Market, and the State	p. 137
The Private Welfare State and the End of Paternalism	p. 171
Increased Risks for the Injured, Disabled, and Unemployed	p. 195
New Models for Social Security	p. 232
The Assimilation of Health Care to the Market	p. 257
Fighting Poverty 1990s Style	p. 293
The End of Welfare	p. 317
Work, Democracy, and Citizenship	p. 341
Postscript: The Post-9/11 American Welfare State	p. 361
Notes	p. 401
Acknowledgments	p. 499
Index	p. 501
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