Eva Bertram.The Workfare State: Public Assistance Politics from the New Deal to the New Democrats.

Abstract

Political scientist Eva Bertram has written an important study of the transition from what she terms the “welfarist” approach to social policy emblematized by policies of the New Deal, to a “workfarist” approach that gained momentum beginning in the late 1960s. The centerpiece of the book is the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996; the statute was passed by both houses of Congress under Republican control and signed by President Bill Clinton. The PRWORA eliminated the public aid program for parents and children, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which had begun as part of the New Deal in 1935, and replaced it with a program of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families that limited adult eligibility to a maximum of five years. With implementation of the PRWORA, cash aid for impoverished families ceased to be an entitlement available to all who met the eligibility criteria, and became a program whose administrators could turn applicants away when program costs reached a certain finite level. The statute made seeking and holding paid work mandatory for all of the adults who received aid under the program.