When the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act became law in 1996, the architects of welfare
reform celebrated what they called the new "consensus" on welfare:
that cash assistance should be temporary and contingent on
recipients' seeking and finding employment. However, assessments
about the assumptions and consequences of this radical change to
the nation's social safety net were actually far more varied and
disputed than the label "consensus" suggests.
By examining the varied realities and accountings of welfare
restructuring, Stretched Thin looks back at a critical moment of
policy change and suggests how welfare policy in the United States
can be changed to better address the needs of poor families and the
nation. Using ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews with
poor families and welfare workers, survey data tracking more than
750 families over two years, and documentary evidence, Sandra
Morgen, Joan Acker, and Jill Weigt question the validity of claims
that welfare reform has been a success. They show how poor
families, welfare workers, and welfare administrators experienced
and assessed welfare reform differently based on gender, race,
class, and their varying positions of power and control within the
welfare state.
The authors document the ways that, despite the dramatic drop in
welfare rolls, low-wage jobs and inadequate social supports left
many families struggling in poverty. Revealing how the neoliberal
principles of a drastically downsized welfare state and individual
responsibility for economic survival were implemented through
policies and practices of welfare provision and nonprovision, the
authors conclude with new recommendations for reforming welfare
policy to reduce poverty, promote economic security, and foster
shared prosperity.
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