From Welfare to Work

Tony Blair has committed his government to tackling the growing underclass of long-term unemployed. Of all the programmes under discussion, none is generating more interest than 'welfare-to-work'. In this collection of essays Professor Lawrence Mead of New York University, one of America's foremost experts on 'workfare', summarises his extensive research. He starts from the position that the main cause of poverty is non-work: poor people are either unemployed or only spasmodically employed. Furthermore, Mead shows that the widely-accepted explanations for this non-work - lack of childcare, poor jobskills, the decline of heavy industry - are only partially convincing. The main reason for non-work is that poor people have sunk into a culture of poverty: they have stopped even expecting to work. For this reason, Mead argues, welfare claimants must be required to take and hold down jobs, on pain of losing their entitlement. This does not entail forcing people to do what they do not want to do: most poor people say that they want to work. Nor is it a case of cutting off aid to the poor: the most successful schemes have involved intensive case-management, described as 'help and hassle'.
Most participants are grateful for being pressured into doing what they know to be right. Editor Alan Deacon has assembled a group of experts to respond to Mead's proposals from a British perspective, including Frank Field MP, the Minister for Welfare Reform. Mead is accused, amongst other things, of blaming the victim, of over-simplifying human behaviour and of failing to take into account the effect which forcing lone mothers into the workforce would have on their children. Questions are also raised about the applicability of the US experience to the UK's tighter job market. Mead replies to his critics in a conclusion which makes this book one of the most complete over-views currently available of an important contemporary issue. "Deacon [has] ...done a considerable service in encouraging Mead to synthesise his work and to invite others critically to examine it." Journal of Social Policy. "Lawrence Mead, professor of politics at New York University, sets out the reasons why he thinks Labour's new deal for lone parents is doomed, and a range of commentators ...take potshots at his thesis." New Statesman.
"This linked collection of essays is vital reading for anyone who wants both an overview and an insight into the debate that is central to the new government's reforms of the welfare state." Community Care.