Economists and political scientists deal with three major areas of concern: the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labor markets, the planned federal reforms in the health-care field that will shift costs to the state and local sectors, and trends in federal aid. Focusing on the impact of US devolution of responsibility and costs to the states, they find that the state economies can accommodate the challenges generally, but that the effect of welfare reform is too long-range to be adequately assessed in the near-term.

The recent devolution to the states of responsibilities previously held by the federal government -- a key goal of the deficit-reduction, smaller-government agenda of the 1990s -- has far-reaching implications for state budgets. At the moment, a strong economy has put most states into a strong enough fiscal condition to shoulder such burdens as welfare reform and public investment. But beneath the current surpluses are structural problems that are unlikely to withstand the next economic downturn; as a result, any essential public needs will be left unmet. This book deal with three major areas of concern: first, the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labor markets; second, the planned federal reforms in the health care field that will shift costs to the state and local sector; and third, trends in federal aid. A basic finding of these essays is that state economies can accommodate these challenges generally speaking, but the effect of recent welfare reform presents a problem too long-range to be adequately assessed in the near-term.