The Human Cost of Welfare
The Human Cost of Welfare
How the System Hurts the People It’s Supposed to Help
by Phil Harvey & Lisa Conyers
The Human Cost of Welfare shows that welfare programs as currently structured are doing more harm than good to their intended beneficiaries, despite their soaring costs. Drawing on more than 150 interviews across the United States — conducted in unemployment offices, in soup kitchens, and in places where the poor live — this book tells the stories of real men and women and leads to the inescapable conclusion that welfare as currently structured is hurting the very people it is meant to help.
In other words, and contrary to popular belief, welfare reform needs reforming. The main problem revealed by our interviews and research is that welfare programs keep people from working, with crippling consequences not only for them but also for their families and our country. Time and again, our face-to-face conversations revealed the barriers to work that the system erects, and the ways it keeps people from getting past those barriers.
Our book will provide readers with an inside look at how welfare works (and often doesn’t), and provide recommendations for reform drawn from a wide variety of scholars as well as our own recommendations gleaned from our research and interviews.
Learn more from the book site.
Praise for The Human Cost of Welfare
"This book paints an alarming picture of our welfare system’s unintended consequences and provides valuable suggestions to make the system better."
"Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers illuminate the whole welfare picture with reports from real people about what keeps them poor and dependent."
"The Human Cost of Welfare exposes the downside of America's welfare programs – they keep people underemployed and unemployed, preventing them from leading meaningful lives. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the disability systems for civilians and military veterans. I’ve studied this issue and lived it myself after losing a leg in Iraq, and I’m glad Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers are shining a light on this huge hidden problem."