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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Uncontrolled Experiments From The Laboratories Of Democracy: Traditional Cash Welfare, Federalism, And Welfare Reform, Jonah B. Gelbach
Uncontrolled Experiments From The Laboratories Of Democracy: Traditional Cash Welfare, Federalism, And Welfare Reform, Jonah B. Gelbach
All Faculty Scholarship
In this chapter I discuss the history and basic incentive effects of two key U.S. cash assistance programs aimed at families with children. Starting roughly in the 1980s, critics of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program argued that the program -- designed largely to cut relatively small checks -- failed to end poverty or promote work. After years of federally provided waivers that allowed states to experiment with changes to their AFDC programs, the critics in 1996 won the outright elimination of AFDC. It was replaced by the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, over which …
Efficiency And Social Citizenship: Challenging The Neoliberal Attack On The Welfare State, Martha T. Mccluskey
Efficiency And Social Citizenship: Challenging The Neoliberal Attack On The Welfare State, Martha T. Mccluskey
Journal Articles
In the face of rising economic inequality and shrinking welfare protections, some scholars recently have revived interest in T.H. Marshall's theory of "social citizenship." That theory places economic rights alongside political and civil rights as fundamental to public well-being. But this social citizenship ideal stands against the prevailing neoliberal ("free market") ideology, which asserts that state abstention from economic protection generates societal well-being. Using the examples of AFDC and workers' compensation in the 1990s, I analyze how arguments about economic efficiency have worked to characterize social welfare programs as producers of public vice rather than public virtue. A close examination …