Title The invisible safety net : protecting the nation's poor children and families / Janet M. Currie

Published Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©2006

Click on the following:
JSTOR eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource (203 pages) Contents Welfare vs. "making work pay" -- In sickness and in health : the importance of public health insurance -- Feeding the hungry : food stamps, school nutrition programs, and WIC -- Home sweet home? -- Who's minding the kids? -- Defending and mending the safety net Summary The modern social safety net is under attack. So argues economist Janet Currie in one of the most provocative books ever published on America's social welfare system. Unlike most books about antipoverty programs, Currie trains her focus on cash welfare, which accounts for a small and shrinking share of federal expenditures on poor families with children, but on the staples of today's American welfare system: Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start, WIC, and public housing. These programs, Currie maintains, form an effective, if largely invisible and haphazard safety net, and yet they are the very programs most vulnerable to political attack and misunderstanding. This book highlights both the importance and the fragility of this safety net, arguing that, while not perfect, it is essential to fighting poverty. Currie demonstrates how America's safety net is threatened by growing budget deficits and by an erroneous public belief that antipoverty programs for children do not work and are riddled with fraud. By unearthing new empirical data, Currie makes the case that social programs for families with children are actually remarkably effective. She takes her argument one step further by offering specific reforms, detailed in each chapter, for improving these programs even more Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-195) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL Print version record digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject Public welfare -- United States. Poor -- Government policy -- United States Poor families -- Services for -- United States Poor children -- Services for -- United States Child welfare -- United States SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Poverty & Homelessness. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare. Child welfare Poor children -- Services for Poor -- Government policy Public welfare Social policy SUBJECT United States -- Social policy -- 1993- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh92006374 Subject United States Form Electronic book ISBN 9781400826995 1400826993

  Permalink