Regulating the poor : the functions of public welfare / Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Piven, Frances Fox.

Contributor:

Cloward, Richard A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public welfare--United States.

Public welfare.

United States.

United states.

Local Subjects:

United states.

Physical Description:

xix, 524 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

Updated edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Vintage Books, 1993.

Summary:

"When this groundbreaking work was first published in 1971, it dramatically revised our understanding of the welfare system and its hidden role within the larger socioeconomic framework of the United States. Now the debate over welfare has grown more volatile than ever, and Regulating the Poor has been substantially updated to make it as relevant to the 1990s as it was to the 1960s and 1970s. Marshaling a vast array of research, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A Cloward persuasively demonstrate how public relief has been used to avert civil chaos during economic downturns and to exert pressure on the work force during periods of stability. Their analysis ranges from the early history of poor relief through the inception of welfare during the Great Depression to its massive erosion during the Reagan and Bush years. The authors provide a conceptual framework that sharply illuminates the problems current and future administrations will encounter as they attempt to rethink the welfare system. Admirably specific yet vast in its implications, Regulating the Poor is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about the American social contract."--Back cover.

Contents:

Relief, labor, and civil disorder: an overview

Economic collapse, mass unemployment, and the rise of disorder

New Deal and relief

Enforcing low-wage work: statutory methods

Enforcing low-wage work: administrative methods

Welfare explosion of the 1960's

Agricultural modernization and mass unemployment

Migration and the rise of disorder in the cities

Great Society and relief: federal intervention

Great Society and relief: local consequences

Poor relief and the dramaturgy of work

Poor relief and theories of the welfare state.

Notes:

"Second Vintage edition"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Piven, Frances Fox. Regulating the poor.

ISBN:

0679745165

9780679745167

OCLC:

28026493

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description