Related Readings
Berrick, Jill Duerr. Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Jill Berrick looks at how welfare began, the myths, realities, and problems surrounding welfare. She centers on the lives and experiences of five women on welfare, speaking about how they came to be on welfare and the struggles they face in everyday life. Through the stories of the women, the book looks at the culture of welfare and poverty, and the survival through it.
Brandwein, Ruth (ed). Battered Women, Children, and Welfare Reform: The Ties that Bind. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1999.
Ruth Brandwein examines welfare and its relation to domestic violence. She looks at how public assistance can provide financial support to help women escape domestic violence; how batterers restrict their partners' jobs and educational opportunities, preventing them from leaving welfare roles; how child support regulations require disclosure of information that may increase the danger of family violence; how child abuse is linked to the need for welfare. A key chapter of the book is written by survivors of abuse who are on welfare.
Carnevale, Anthony and Kathleen Reich. Piece of the Puzzle: How States Can Use Education to Make Pay for Welfare Recipients. Copies of report are free. Contact: Educational Testing Service, Communications Services, Rosedale Road, Mail Stop, 50-B, Princeton, NJ, 08541. Phone: (609) 734-1200.
Dujon, Diane and Ann Withorn (eds). For Crying Out Loud: Women's Poverty in the United States. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1996
Dujon and Withorn compile and analyze both personal accounts and scholarly works to paint a candid portrait of welfare in the U.S. The collection is divided into four sections. The first captures personal welfare histories, allowing us to become one with the writers. Section two discusses the complexity of poor women's issues, while section three shows how the welfare system divides and destabilizes people, fueling right wing politicians' fire for dismantling the system. The closing section offers strategies for change and coalition building across both sides of the table.
Mink, Gwendolyn. Welfare's End. New York: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Gwendolyn Mink documents the origins of the current welfare reform. She takes a look at welfare as a condition of woman's equality. She challenges the perception of a mother's poverty as a moral failing, and of welfare recipients as less than full citizens who "do not deserve the same rights as others." She looks at the work requirements of welfare and discusses how that takes mothers away from their children. She ends with her proposal for ending welfare, not by cutting the system and hurting recipients, but in a way that makes women on welfare equal to the rest of society.
Mink, Gwendolyn (ed). Whose Welfare. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Whose Welfare is a critical response to welfare reform written by feminist scholars. Most of the authors in this collection of essays particpated in the Women's Committee of One Hundred, a feminist mobilization against punitive welfare reform. The book aims to "make changes in policy and rules that might make life under welfare a bit more manageable."
Quadango, Jill S. The Color of Welfare : How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996
In the 1960s, the Johnson administration, through its Great Society programs, embarked on a journey to end poverty in America, and accoring to Jill Quadango, failed dismally. In The Color of Welfare, Quadango argues that Johnson's War on Poverty failed because it became entangled with the civil rights movement, triggering a white backlash that stymied social programs.
Rank, Mark R. Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Rank looks at the percentage of people on welfare, of people entering welfare, and leaving welfare, as well as the demographics of welfare. The book also looks at the ongoing debate about welfare, the attitudes people have about welfare, the myths and realities of people on welfare. It includes statistics and charts.
Rodgers, Harrell R. Poor Women, Poor Children: American Poverty in the 1990's. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996.
Harrell Rodgers analyzes 1996 data on the profile of poor families and the underlying causes of the increase in poor mother--only households. Rodgers also proposed approaches to welfare reform. The book includes figures and statistics about poverty, family structure and welfare. It compares past policies with current reforms.
Seccombe, Karen. "So You Think I Drive a Cadillac?": Welfare Recipient's Perspectives on the System and its Reform. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999.
Karen Seccombe provides insight into what it is like to be poor and live on welfare. "In this era of controversial welfare reforms, we hear from lawmakers or policy 'experts' but rarely from the voices of women themselves. We do not hear the sting of what poverty feels like, or how single mothers cope with the stigma and stress of raising children on meager welfare benefits or low wage earnings. Underneath the statistics and the theories are real live human beings who are trying to make sense of their lives." (pulled from author's preface.)
Sidel, Ruth. Keeping Women and Children Last: America's War on the Poor. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Ruth Sidel researches the targeting of women on welfare. According to Sidel, politicians have scapegoated and stigmatized female-headed families as a method of social control as well as a way of diverting attention from the severe problems America faces. This book tells of the millions of children who suffer from social neglect, inferior education, inadequate healthcare, hunger and homelessness. The book deals with the shift of welfare since welfare reform.
Zucchino, David. Myth of the Welfare Queen: a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist's Portrait of Women on the Line. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
David Zucchino, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, spent a year sharing the lives of two 'welfare mothers' in Philadelphia. By doing so, he gained an intimate look at their day-to-day lives. Zucchino portrays both women not only as women on welfare, but also women of courage and perseverance. This book helps shatter the misconceptions and stereotypes about the women and others like them.