Welfare

Phillip Longman is a Senior Research Fellow, currently concentrating on health care policy, including delivery system reform, environmental, and nutritional factors affecting public health. His work has appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, Der Spiegel, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The New… more

The 1996 welfare reform law which created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program gave states far more flexibility in determining the best ways to move their neediest families from dependence on cash assistance towards economic self-sufficiency. Policymakers have issued a series of short-term extensions to TANF in recent years while attempting to build a consensus on how it should be reauthorized. Therefore, an opportunity exists to build upon existing -- and incorporate new -- asset building strategies into… more

For $3.8 trillion, we should get more than this.

That's the combined expenditure of the federal, state and local governments in 2005, nearly a third of the national economy. And yet the results in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast speak for themselves: Warnings went unheeded, levees were neglected, cops and rescuers were short-shrifted.

At the root of problem is a deep failure in the vision of both left and right as to how government should work.… more

Before it became a celebration of summer's end, Labor Day was a symbol of reform--a time, said labor activist Samuel Gompers, to discuss rights and wrongs and make the worker 'stronger for it.' In the true spirit of the holiday, Americans who care about children and families should first resolve to improve the imperiled state of the nation's child-welfare workers.

Sensational cases of child abuse and neglect have kept the spotlight on the failures of state child-welfare agencies… more

In today's global economy, any job can be performed anywhere. In order to compete in a global labour market, all students in advanced industrial countries need to be highly trained in science and mathematics. In order to compete in the global economy, the advanced industrial nations must downsize generous welfare states.

The above represents something like the conventional wisdom about the global economy, the future job market and the welfare state. There is only one problem: every assertion… more

Nearly a year ago, voters following the presidential race heard a stirring call for social reform: "The times in which we work and live are changing dramatically. The workers of our parents' generation typically had one job, one skill, one career. ... And most of those workers were men. Today, workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives, and ... two-thirds of all moms also work outside the home." As a result, "many of our most fundamental systems--the… more

Remember those bumper stickers during the early-1990s fight over the Clinton health plan? "National Health Care? The Compassion of the IRS! The Efficiency of the Post Office! All at Pentagon Prices!" In American policy debates, it's a fixed article of faith that the federal government is woefully bumbling and expensive in comparison with the well-oiled efficiency of the private sector. Former Congressman Dick Armey even elevated this skepticism into a pithy maxim: "The market is rational; government is dumb." … more

Concern over rising health care costs and the growing number of uninsured Americans has brought the issue of health care reform back onto the front burner. These issues garnered significant attention during the 2004 Presidential campaign, with recent polls showing that the public consistently identifies health care costs and coverage among the most important issues facing this country. While Americans seem to agree that change is desperately needed, no single approach has emerged as the preferred avenue for accomplishing reform.… more

In 1994, Republicans in California distributed a voter education pamphlet titled "The Welfare Mess." On its cover was a vivid montage of ghetto pathology: food stamps intermixed with hundred-dollar bills, drug paraphernalia alongside a snub-nosed pistol. Inside, the pamphlet catalogued welfare's pernicious effects. Teen pregnancy, runaway crime, moral decay, even falling SAT scores--all were blamed on a welfare system run amok. The pamphlet closed with a dire warning: "If You Don't Vote, THEY WIN."

Today the Republican Party… more

One July morning last year in Oklahoma City, in a public-housing project named Sooner Haven, twenty-two-year-old Kin Henderson pulled a pair of low-rider jeans over a high-rising gold lamé thong and declared herself ready for church. Her best friend in the project, Corean Brothers, was already in the parking lot, fanning away her hot flashes behind the wheel of a smoke-belching Dodge Shadow. "Car's raggedy, but it'll get us from pillar to post," Corean said when Kim climbed… more