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Living on the Edge in Suburbia : From Welfare to Workfare by Terese Lawinski is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Living on the Edge in Suburbia : From Welfare to Workfare about?

Westchester County, New York, is thought of as suburban and affluent, but welfare reform hit hard here, too. The radical 1996 legislation created a temporary assistance program for poor families with harsher provisions than the program it replaced. It mandates "workfare," meaning that recipients must work as a condition of benefit receipt. But the work parents obtain in the so-called flexible labor market--jobs like home health care aide--are inflexible for them. One sick child can mean the loss of a job. In contrast to accounts of inner-city poor families, these suburban parents' stories reveal a broad array of precipitating circumstances leading to their downward economic slide and to welfare. They also provide insight into the bureaucratic machinations, rigid rules and mandates, disciplining techniques, and catch-22s that create an insecure environment for many families today. Many of these stories show that the need for welfare over time extends well beyond the federal government's five-year lifetime limit on welfare. Policies emphasizing work first also restrict access to education and further hinder parents' ability to gain a toehold in the economy. In this tale of people and

Author

Terese Lawinski

Publisher

Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press

Published

2010

Language

EN

ISBN

9781283053679

Subjects

Political Science, Sociology, Social Science