Undeserving Poor

Michael Katz is a social historian who traces the intellectual history of poverty and social policy in the U.S. from the 1960s-1990s. He provides superb insights into the intellectual discourse during the War on Poverty era which left us with many of our current programs: Headstart, Foodstamps, Legal Aid, to name a few. He covers a variety of theoretical perspectives, from left to right, thus enabling the reader to understand policy debates over the role of government in the provision of a social safety net. Excellent for understanding why our public policies on poverty differ so much from other Western developed countries. This books sets the context for the eventual dismantling of welfare (AFDC) in the 1990s. To understand this historic shift in social policy, readers should follow this book up with his later volume "The Price of Citizenship". It is ironic today (2010) that while many criticize the War on Poverty, it gave us food stamps, which is what keeps many Americans from going hungry in the Great Recession.

From Introduction: "The vocabulary of poverty impoverishes political imagination. For two centuries of American history, considerations of productivity, cost, and eligibility have channeled discourse about need, entitlement, and justice within narrow limits bounded by the market. In every era, a few people have counterposed dignity, community, and equality as standards for policy. But they have remained outsiders, unable to divert the powerful currents constraining the possibilities for social thought and public action. In this book, I show how these historic preoccupations have shaped and confined ideas about poor people and distributive justice in recent American history." ***** CONTENTS: * Introduction 1 - From the Undeserving Poor to the Culture of Poverty 2 - Poverty and the Politics of Liberation 3 - Intellectual Foundations of the War on Poverty 4 - Interpretations of Poverty in the Postindustrial City 5 - The Underclass? * Epilogue: 'Them' or 'Us'? Appendix: The Dimensions of Poverty