The American Welfare System: Origins, Structure, and Effects

By Howard Gensler

This important and timely work provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the American welfare system from an economic, legal, historical, and policy perspective. This volume reviews the historical origins of the American welfare system, the Constitutional development of welfare law and entitlements, and the economic structure and effects of welfare based on a large national data set covering the period 1979 through 1990. The book includes policy analyses and recommendations for reform. The scope of coverage and currency of this volume makes it an indispensable reference work for policymakers, students, scholars, and analysts of welfare.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0275952045
• ISBN13: 9780275952044
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

If I Say So Myself: Uncommon Wisdom on Welfare Reform

I'm a little biased in that I contributed nine chapters to this book edited by Howard Gensler. My contribution included ideas drawn from my award-winning dissertation on the connection between child labor and child welfare in the Progressive Era. Dr. Gensler had noticed my dissertation appearing as a footnote in various public policy books regarding the origins of the U.S. welfare state and invited me to publish this information as part of his edited book. Dr. Gensler is an economist who had a special understanding of the implications of my work for non-political scientists. He also provided his own compelling ideas on the importance of providing poor folks with small savings accounts which provide them with a stake in the larger system and undermine the enduring hopelessness of their condition. D. Eric Schansberg also provided an excellent chapter on welfare policy - point and counterpoint - which places the larger debate into an organized context. All in all, this book is one of the things I'm most proud of in my life. I think the ideas here played a small role in shaping welfare reform in the 1990s and stand as important scientific contribution to maintaining the gains caused by welfare reform.