A journalist describes the years she worked in low-paying domestic work under wealthy employers, contrasting the privileges of the upper-middle class to the realities of the overworked laborers supporting them.

Arguing that an equitable Social Security solution will be unattainable unless we bring stakeholders together around a common understanding of the facts and of the need to take action to address them, former White House adviser Charles Blahous presents some often misunderstood, basic factual background about Social Security. He discusses how it affects program participants and explains the true demographic, economic, and political factors that threaten...

Helen V. Milner is Professor of Political Science and a member of the Institute on War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. She is the author of Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade (Princeton). Increasingly scholars of international relations are rallying around the idea that "domestic politics matters." Few, however, have articulated precisely how or why it matters. In this significant book, Helen...

Since the beginning of the New Deal, American liberals have insisted that the government must do more-much more-to help the poor, to increase economic security, to promote social justice and solidarity, to reduce inequality, and to mitigate the harshness of capitalism. Nonetheless, liberals have never answered, or even acknowledged, the corresponding question: What would be the size and nature of a welfare state that was not contemptibly austere,...

Contemporary social policy has never been more vigorously contested. Issues range from single-issue campaigns over housing, social care, hospital closures through to organised movements around disability, environment, health and education. However, the historical and contemporary role played by social movements in shaping social welfare has too often been neglected in standard social policy texts. Understanding social welfare movements is the first...

Offering a perceptive study of the urgent human rights issue of trafficking in persons, this important book analyses the development and effectiveness of public policies across Eurasia. Drawing on multi-method research in the region, Laura A. Dean explores the factors behind anti-trafficking strategies and the role of governments and activists in combating labour and sexual exploitation. She examines the intersection of global strategies and state-by-state...

The 1996 Welfare Reform Act was the most significant changes in social welfare policy in nearly 30 years. The Poverty of Welfare examines the impact of that reform, looking at the context of welfare's history, and concludes that while welfare reform was a step in the right direction, we have a long way to go to fix the deeply troubled system. Tanner suggests that we should be working toward the total elimination of government welfare programs, substituting...

This unique study explores how strategies to safeguard the provision of legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision.

As public services budgets are cut, the 'Payment by Results' (or Pay for Success) model has become a popular choice in public sector commissioning. Social Impact Bonds are a variant of Payment by Results also promoted by proponents of social (or impact) investing. But how effective are these approaches? This short book asks whether the Payment by Results model is an efficient way to unlock new capital investment, help new providers to enter the...

Using new research, Anne Daguerre examines Obama's legacy on welfare and antipoverty policies, focusing in particular on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).