<p>Melissa A. Gunderson reviews <em>Both Hands Tied: Race to the Bottom of the Low-Wage Labor Market</em> by Jane L. Collins and Victoria Mayer. The authors examine the results of welfare "reform" through the eyes of thirty-three women who participated in PRWORA programs in the state of Wisconsin.</p>

The essays in this volume, authored by close friends, associates and students, pay tribute to Sar Levitan and the enduring mark he left on the field of social policy. The book is loosely organized around the method of analysis taught and practiced by Levitan: identifying problems through the...

Many recent policy-related debates have centred on the possibility of constructing post-social insurance and post-means tested forms of income provision. Such asset-based welfare and stakeholding proposals have included Basic Income (BI) and some form of endowment or Capital Grant (CG) scheme....

The Work and Social Assistance Act grants a minimum income to anyone with insufficient means to support themselves. Local authorities (municipalities) have been responsible for implementing the Work and Social Assistance Act since 2004, which includes managing the social security budget and...

This article engages in a dynamic comparative analysis of key labour market reforms in Denmark, Sweden and Finland from the early 1990s to the 2000s. During this period traditional egalitarian and collectivist elements of Nordic social insurance were reshaped by workfare reforms. The ways in...

Activation measures in Finland have meant the weakening of the level, qualification criteria, coverage, and time limits of social benefits in a way inimical to the post-Second World War Nordic welfare model. These changes have been accompanied by a growth of labour market flexibility, of...

Japan is rapidly aging, due to longer life expectancy and fewer children. Japanese social policy has tried to reduce the impacts of demographic changes by providing social services and benefits. The dominant Democratic Party of Japan came into power in the 2009 election after promising to extend...

Current proposals for welfare reform in the UK are based on a Universal Credit, intended simultaneously to simplify the structure of benefits while offering sensitive and rapid responsiveness to personal circumstances. The two objectives are in conflict, and neither can be achieved by the proposals.

During the first decade of the 21st century, China’s top leaders reined in the marketising, commercialising welfare reforms of the 1990s, and recommitted the State to a role in providing social goods. But the governmental and social elites who shape welfare policy are still debating the...