In 1996, President Bill Clinton hailed the 'end of welfare as we know it' when he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. The law effectively transformed the nation's welfare system from an entitlement to a work-based one, instituting new time limits on welfare payments and...

Reaching for a new deal: ambitious governance, economic meltdown, and polarized politics / Theda Skocpol, Lawrence R. Jacobs -- Hard-fought legacy: Obama, congressional democrats, and the struggle for comprehensive health care reform / Lawrence R. Jacobs, Theda Skocpol -- Eliminating the market...

Changing poverty and changing antipoverty policies / Maria Cancian and Sheldon Danziger -- Poverty levels and trends in comparative perspective / Daniel R. Meyer and Geoffrey L. Wallace -- Economic change and the structure of opportunity for less-skilled workers / Rebecca M. Blank -- Family...

Over the last forty years, rising national income has helped reduce poverty rates, but this has been accompanied by an increase in economic inequality. While these trends are largely attributed to technological change and demographic shifts, such as changing birth rates, labor force patterns,...