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The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State

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Katz is a historian on welfare in the United States. This book is a history book about welfare. It is a very balanced and objective book, because the author tends to NOT write any of his own opinions, and instead, just uses the opinions of others. This is a good thing for 2 reasons: (1). You aren't as likely to be getting the author's bias meshed in with the writings (2). You get a BETTER historical view of welfare, and the different sides.

Now, I'm not sure if Katz is a liberal. He doesn't really ever go into what he thinks, or what his views are on the different issues of welfare. What I am sure is that he presents BOTH SIDES of the debate on welfare. Not only do you get to read the opinions of the liberals who are for welfare, but you get to read all the opinions of conservatives against it. This is how historical books are supposed to be presented, and this is how Katz' Price of Citizenship is presented. The reviewer below who talks about Katz making all these liberal assumptions obviously didn't read the book. Katz opinions in the matter are absent in the book. The ONLY case you could make about Katz creating a libral-bias side FOR welfare is by saying he gives more credence to liberal views than conservative views by presenting more, or better written liberal views than conservative views. Well, I didn't notice any such thing at all.

Now, I'm not going to pretend like this book doesn't seem to hint at giving any sort of credence to a political ideology. Its conclusions do seem to give more credence to the liberal side of the welfare debate than the conservative one. But is that because the author is creating biased arguments in favor of liberal positions? Nope. Read the book. You'll be amazed how objective this book is considering it deals with such an emotional, hot political topic. You know, sometimes, one side of the political spectrum may have more truth in its favor than the other side. When presenting these truths, this hardly counts as bias, or rhetoric. Its been my experience that neither political side (liberal or conservative) has a monopoly on the truth. Sometimes, when you take an objective look at a certain issue, and examine ALL the facts, one side is going to come out ahead. Thats just life. THere's no liberal or conservative conspiracy going on.

For those of you who've read Charle's Murray's Losing Ground (which I have), it is HARDLY a liberal equivalent. There is a surprisingly absense of political rhetoric, or emotional arguments in this book. It is truly a perfect example of how one CAN ACTUALLY learn some real truths about a political topic that has biased rhetoric from both sides of the political spectrum.

If you really want to learn something about welfare, and the recent history of welfare (i.e. welfare in the 90's) and all the recent debates about it, then read this book. Read it ESPECIALLY if you are like me, and are tired of reading countless partisan books from both sides time and time again when researching political topics.

Michael Katz's monograph on the end of AFDC and the rise of market systems as the preferred solution to everything is not the wittiest and most readable book one could have on the subject. Nor is it the most passionate. But it is thoroughly documented and it manifestly shows how the attack on the welfare state in the nineties has increased inequality and decreased security for most Americans. Katz starts off with a fine description of poverty and inequality in the modern American city. He emphasizes, as others have, the very generous government and public support for suburbia at the expense of the inner city, especially in transport and housing. Suburbia's most privileged and coddled residents then turned around to denounce any welfare and assistance to people not like themselves as the most horrendous abuse imaginable of taxpayer funds. More, I think, could have been said about the rise of the conservative ascendency, particularly the weakness of the Democratic Party and trade unions to serve or to mobilize any liberal alternative.

Katz then goes on to provide useful and informative chapters on governors as welfare reformers, mayors as welfare reformers, the limits of private charity, the decline of employer benefits, increased risks for the injured and disabled and unemployed, "reform" of social security, new market models for health care, the fate of food stamps and legal services and the end of welfare. Each chapter is useful and will be very illuminating for those who only read The New Republic. Consider the case of John Engler's welfare reform, which boasted of its removal of people from the welfare rolls and their placement in paying employment. But how much of this was the result of the reforms and how much was it that of a booming economy? A study found that when compared to a control group, Engler's programs had increased adult employment by only 2.4%. And in Detroit 60% of children under five still lived in poverty in 1996. The even more hyped case of Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin (now the Secretary in charge of getting hysterical over anthrax) is even more convincingly deflated. Thompson's Learnfare, a program of denying benefits to families whose children do not attend school, certainly seemed tough and punitive, but even state agencies agreed it hadn't actually increased school attendance. It may appear encouraging that from 1987-1995 Wisconsin's AFDC payroll dropped by a nearly a quarter. But 75% of that decline occured in his first term, before his plans had time to take effect. The centrist Democratic mayor of Philadelphia has been much praised, but the city was still losing people and perhaps 27% of the population was below the poverty line. Privitization in Indianopolis actualy increased long-term debt, while taxes rose and homicides beat new records in 1994 and 1997.

Empowerment zones are also deflated: "In June 1999 the Philadelphia empowerment zone reported that it had helped businesses create four hundred jobs, but it could not say whether the jobs already existed or were projected for the future." Private charities have never, Katz points out, cared for most of America's needy. Many private charities depend on government funds for their work, and much of charity goes to religious denominations, as opposed to poor per se. The distinction can be seen in 1994 when the governor of Mississippi asked the states' 5,500 churches to adapt a needy family, only 15 followed through. We then move to the steady evisceration of company benefits, along with attempts to gut workmen's compensation and unemployment insurance.

Katz is good at pointing out the flaws in conservative attacks on welfare. He discusses the 1995 campaign against disability benefits, which relied on anecdotal evidence, despite four major studies that found no evidence of widespread fraud or abuse. A hotline to report fraud found only 83 serious cases out of a million eligible children. Katz also discusses the conservative panic over social security, such as how their vaunted "Chilean" model has high administrative costs and in 1995 was actually losing money. The Enron debacle only vindicates Katz's criticisms. Katz also details the failure of for-profit hospitals, with their own habits of "waste, fraud and abuse," and the debacle that is managed care. He notes how legal services in the United States receives only a fraction of the money alloted to it in Ontario and Britain. He deflates conservative propaganda that AFDC causes illegitimacy (if so, why is single parenting rising when the value of AFDC benefits had been dropping for decades?) He notes that welfare reform has proven more successful at reducing rolls than reducing poverty, and there has a been a noted reluctance for people to research how those thrown off rolls are doing. (Reports that 50% of ex-recepients have found jobs are not all that different from statistics in the eighties) By the end of the book Katz has clearly shown that we now live in a world where the price of citizenship is paid by those who can least afford it, as they are governed by men (and occasionally women) who believe that sacrifices are something that only other people do.

With "The Price of Citizenship," Katz performs a much needed demystification of the ways in which the social welfare state and the poor have been attacked and continue to be attacked by social and fiscal conservatives under the guise of consumer choice and the chimerical promise of the marketplace as the best of all possible ways to administer "welfare." A work of breathtaking scope, Katz examines each of the programs of the welfare state -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, AFDC ("welfare"), Public Eduation, etc. -- gives a brief history of the inception of each, and then gives a recent history of how each program has come under attack by the forces of business and and their shortsighted friends in government.

Here's how they do it, according to Katz: Using the same master narratives of sorting citizens into deserving and undeserving categories to begin the assault, then tightening the screws on the "undeserving," the conservative business forces follow up with the panacea of the marketplace as the be-all and end-all solution: get those lazy minority mothers off the dole and into jobs; close down the loopholes in unemployment so that no one will qualify; drive people slowly toward the assumption of more and more risk by scaring them with junk statistics on the imminent demise of Social Security and then offering them the "solution" of mutual funds -- etc., etc., etc. The strategy is always the same: the market will knit up the ravell'd sleeve of care, when in fact it really serves to unravel the social safety net for those who need it most, and, weaves new money-making nets for others in the name of "efficiency" and "choice." These special stronger nets are the new welfare schemes for corporations and the upper and upper middle class.

One of the finest chapters deals with underhanded manipulation by conservatives of the public with regard to viability of Social Security. Katz convincingly shows that Social Security is not in any danger of going bankrupt -- period. He shows how the forces arrayed against Social Security, through misinformation, through the politics of playing younger workers against older workers, has managed to convince most Americans that they will either not recieve their benefits or recieved reduced benefits. Indeed, until I read this chapter, I was one sheep among the many. He then goes on to show how the various "choice" schemes proposed to "fix" Social Security through investment in the stockmarket -- either individually or collectively -- would serve to make financial companies billions and billions of dollars. In every chapter, Katz follows the money, and, sadly it usually leads to the ultra-right think tanks whose clients most stand to profit from the privatization of government social welfare programs.

It may sound by this review that "The Price of Citizenship" is a muckraking screed. Or that it was written by a conspiracy nut. It is neither. Instead it is a deeply researched work that convinces through facts as well as through narrative that the forces of the marketplace through the instrument of the ideology of the market as espoused by the right wing have been successful in undermining the foundations of U.S. social welfare programs (which frankly weren't much to begin with). Katz never uses invective -- the strongest word he uses is "underhanded" in his description of the scuttling of Clinton's health plan by business and medical interests -- instead he marshalls facts, questions assumptions, and draw important parallels and connections between the assaults on all of these programs. After reading this book, you'll be more than prepared to do some debunking of the conventional wisdom about Social Security, "Workfare" programs, HMOs, etc. May I dare say Katz has done us all, and even his country, a noble service by putting the lie to the master lie of the marketplace as the best solution for what ails us. Voucher this, baby!

...I read every...word (including end notes) and it was one of the most boring things I've ever done. I should be praised for that. I encourage anyone to read the book and see for yourself. It's a liberal apologetics book about welfare... Again, read the book and you'll see.

The main assumption of this book is: liberals good, conservatives bad. Conservatives supported welfare reform because they are troubled by "undeserving" blacks and Hispanics receiving welfare without working. Conservatives "attack" welfare programs, they aren't really concerned about ending poverty. Oh, well, what could I have expected? But lets get in-depth.

#1. Katz repeatedly uses the government's official "poverty line" in throwing out tons of meaningless statistics about who is "poor" in this country. Does any serious intellectual accept the government's "poverty line" as a true indication of poverty? People who own $120,000 homes with three beds, two baths and a garage are not poor. The "official" poverty statistics also only count a person's current annual income, not the person's other assets. Needless to say, if Katz were truly interested in adding to public discourse, he'd avoid such an arbitrary definition of poverty.

#2. Katz assumes that people are better off when they aren't poor. I don't think anyone believes that the destitute are better off, but every study I've ever seen on the subject says that poor people are happier than rich people. So, why in the world is he trying to make people less happy? That's cruel.

#3. Katz compares benefits received at work to public welfare. WHAT? These aren't gifts from my employer, Mr. Katz. It's part of my compensation package. I have agreed that it is in my best interest for my employer to pay for my health insurance. They can get a lower rate with their purchasing power. If my health insurance were taken out of my compensation package, I'd be looking for a job elsewhere. My employer knows that and due to my skills, they don't wish to take that chance. It's the market working to my benefit.

#4. Katz continually asserts that white welfare reformers are upset by minority welfare recipients. He offers nothing in the way of facts to back this up. He just knows its true and we should believe him. In my opinion, it's just another attempt by a liberal to intimate that conservatives are racist, thereby scaring away those afraid of the P.C. police from the conservative position.

#5. The dust cover says Mr. Katz owns a home in Pennsylvania and a home in Maine. Another hypocritical limosine liberal!! If he thinks there is so much economic inequality in this country, I encourage him to give up one of his homes to a poorer fellow citizen. Or better yet, give up a good chunk of that hefty income that allows you to afford your house and give it to one of the janitors at your school.

#6. Katz claims that Americans don't give enough money to charity to support a private welfare system. Hello?!! Maybe that's because the government already takes so much from them. There aren't many resources left when every level of government takes their hands out of your pockets.