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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Conservatives and defenders of consensus may deplore them, but Florida State University sociology professor Quadagno demonstrates convincingly that race, class, and gender are essential analytical categories for those who hope to understand the nation's past and to design public policies for its future. Her timely, well-researched study of the War on Poverty and the "equal-opportunity welfare state" it produced begins by dissecting the New Deal's crucial compromise: providing some economic security for working men and their families while reinforcing the color line. When the War on Poverty--under pressure from the civil rights movement--challenged that color line, its community action, housing, and job training programs came to be seen as benefiting only African Americans and indeed as threats to middle-class white Americans, the major beneficiaries of the New Deal. The Color of Welfare challenges the more accepted explanations of American exceptionalism, and insists that "the continual reconfiguration of racial inequality" is "the motor driving American history." Only by overcoming racial inequality can the U.S. reform its welfare system and redeem its democratic principles. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A pointed reinterpretation of the history of antipoverty policy, arguing that racism most explains why our welfare state is feeble compared with other industrialized nations. Quadagno (Sociology/Florida State Univ.; The Transformation of Old Age Security, not reviewed) proceeds with several case studies, which could have used a bit of leavening with political context and journalistic verve. The author notes that black agricultural workers and domestic servants were denied Social Security protection because of white political opposition in the Roosevelt era. Similarly, New Deal programs seeking to bolster the housing market actually reinforced housing segregation. The Office of Economic Opportunity, the main engine of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, didn't receive enough funding, nor did it establish a policy of redistribution, the author notes. Her discussion of government job-training programs and affirmative action, in which she attacks William Julius Wilson's well-known critique of group rights, is not fully convincing; nor does it address some latter- day issues like the ``race-norming'' of job tests. More potent is her analysis of federal housing policy, which in the 1980s retreated from its commitment to subsidizing housing for the poor. Also, she shows how Richard Nixon's Family Assistance Plan, which promised a guaranteed annual income to the poor, threatened Southern political and business powers, who led the political opposition. She does suggest that the country's lack of commitment to universal child care can be blamed less on racism than on general social conservatism. In the end, Quadagno establishes that the US, compared to other industrialized nations, does the least to fight poverty. However, she would have set the stage better for discussion of solutions had she mentioned America's changing multiracial landscape, debates about the impact of culture on poverty, and current proposals for such policies as workfare. Mainly for students and policy wonks. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
Conservatives and defenders of consensus may deplore them, but Florida State University sociology professor Quadagno demonstrates convincingly that race, class, and gender are essential analytical categories for those who hope to understand the nation's past and to design public policies for its future. Her timely, well-researched study of the War on Poverty and the "equal-opportunity welfare state" it produced begins by dissecting the New Deal's crucial compromise: providing some economic security for working men and their families while reinforcing the color line. When the War on Poverty--under pressure from the civil rights movement--challenged that color line, its community action, housing, and job training programs came to be seen as benefiting only African Americans and indeed as threats to middle-class white Americans, the major beneficiaries of the New Deal. The Color of Welfare challenges the more accepted explanations of American exceptionalism, and insists that "the continual reconfiguration of racial inequality" is "the motor driving American history." Only by overcoming racial inequality can the U.S. reform its welfare system and redeem its democratic principles. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A pointed reinterpretation of the history of antipoverty policy, arguing that racism most explains why our welfare state is feeble compared with other industrialized nations. Quadagno (Sociology/Florida State Univ.; The Transformation of Old Age Security, not reviewed) proceeds with several case studies, which could have used a bit of leavening with political context and journalistic verve. The author notes that black agricultural workers and domestic servants were denied Social Security protection because of white political opposition in the Roosevelt era. Similarly, New Deal programs seeking to bolster the housing market actually reinforced housing segregation. The Office of Economic Opportunity, the main engine of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, didn't receive enough funding, nor did it establish a policy of redistribution, the author notes. Her discussion of government job-training programs and affirmative action, in which she attacks William Julius Wilson's well-known critique of group rights, is not fully convincing; nor does it address some latter- day issues like the ``race-norming'' of job tests. More potent is her analysis of federal housing policy, which in the 1980s retreated from its commitment to subsidizing housing for the poor. Also, she shows how Richard Nixon's Family Assistance Plan, which promised a guaranteed annual income to the poor, threatened Southern political and business powers, who led the political opposition. She does suggest that the country's lack of commitment to universal child care can be blamed less on racism than on general social conservatism. In the end, Quadagno establishes that the US, compared to other industrialized nations, does the least to fight poverty. However, she would have set the stage better for discussion of solutions had she mentioned America's changing multiracial landscape, debates about the impact of culture on poverty, and current proposals for such policies as workfare. Mainly for students and policy wonks. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
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