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From Welfare to Work: Corporate Initiatives and Welfare Reform

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I took a class on Poverty and Welfare. This was one of my required readings. It will help open your eyes and change the stigma you have about those on welfare and about poverty in America.

From Welfare to Work: Corporate Initiatives and Welfare Reform, by Felice Davidson Perlmutter, was an informative book about how private corporations can collaborate with public welfare systems to train and hire employees. The book explores the need and benefits of corporate initiative to aid both the corporation and welfare recipients. The majority of Perlmutter's book details in extremity an example of a private insurance corporation, Pennsylvania Blue Shield, and their program to train and hire welfare recipients. The purpose of the case study is to explain how a large corporation can employ welfare recipients successfully and to address the issues that are critical to encourage corporations to execute a program of this nature. The program designed by Pennsylvania Blue Shield is fascinating because it shows how companies can become more dynamic by making profits and showing corporate responsibility.

Perlmutter does an excellent job of showing the extent that a company can be socially responsible and benefit financially at the same time. She uses a number of statistics to show that the costs associated with the programs are helping to reduce public spending and invest in the future success of both the individuals that are trained and the corporations implementing the programs. One noticeable aspect left out of the book is the lack of examples that illustrate poor implementation of corporate responsibility initiatives in contrast to the success stories mentioned.

Overall, this book was somewhat interesting to read. From Welfare to Work would be extremely valuable for a corporate executive to gain ideas beneficial to his or her company, but as a college student, there is not much use for this book other than opening my eyes to the fact that more than just public tax dollars can be used to help welfare recipients. It is good to know that many people on welfare want to do something with their lives other than sit around and receive government checks. If more companies would use programs such as the one described in the book, a great deal of tax dollars spent on welfare would be saved and the quality of life in our country would increase with more people having pride in their jobs.