Description
Book SynopsisThere was a time when America's poor faced a stark choice between access to social welfare and full civil rights - a predicament that forced them to forfeit their citizenship in exchange for economic relief. Over time, however, our welfare system improved dramatically. This work demonstrates that its legacy of disenfranchisement persisted.
Trade Review"This outstanding book incisively recasts the history of the American welfare state as a series of struggles over the terms of citizenship. Through a succession of carefully researched and artfully drawn historical case studies, Goldberg demonstrates that conflict over the citizenship status of welfare beneficiaries played a major role in the fundamental battles about race, class, and gender that shaped the nation." - Robert C. Lieberman, author of Shaping Race Policy"
