Workfare : why good social policy ideas go bad /

Workfare : why good social policy ideas go bad /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Quaid, Maeve.
Imprint:	Toronto, Ont. : University of Toronto Press, ©2002.
Description:	1 online resource (ix, 244 pages)
Language:	English
Series:	Faculty Publications Collection (Thomas J. Bata Library)
Subject:	Welfare recipients -- Employment -- Canada. Welfare recipients -- Employment -- United States. Public welfare administration -- Canada. Public welfare administration -- United States. Public welfare administration. Welfare recipients -- Employment. Canada. United States. Electronic books.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11177210

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781442683655 1442683651 1282025996 9781282025998 0802042619 0802081010 9780802042613 9780802081018
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-240) and index. Print version record.
Summary:	One of the greatest, as well as the most debated, social policy ideas of the 1980s and 1990s was workfare. In Workfare: Why Good Social Policy Ideas Go Bad, Maeve Quaid delves into the definition and history of workfare, and then continues with a critical and comparative analysis of workfare programs in six jurisdictions: three American (California, Wisconsin, New York) and three Canadian (Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick). Drawing from these case studies, Quaid develops an analytic model that illustrates how workfare falls prey to a series of hazards whereby good social policy ideas fail. Their demise, argues Quaid, begins with politicians with a zest for big ideas but little interest in implementation, continues with short-sighted policy makers, resistant bureaucrats, cynical recipients, flawed evaluations, and is completed by fleeting and fickle public attention for these news stories. Quaid's identification and analysis of these hazards is especially valuable because the hazards can also be applied to innovation in any area of social policy, such as health-care, education, pension plans, child-care, and unemployment insurance.
Other form:	Print version: Quaid, Maeve. Workfare. Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, ©2002 9780802042613

Table of Contents:

What is workfare? Something, nothing, or anything and everything
Policy chic : putting the poor to work
California's GAIN program : the operation was a success but the patient died
Wisconsin : Tommy Thompson and his welfare miracle
New York City's Work Experience Program : 'same shit, different day
'Learnfare' in New Brunswick : tune in, turn on, drop out
Alberta's mandatory 'voluntary opportunities'
Ontario works program : mutiny on the bounty
Why good ideas for bad : a six-hazard model.