Social Citizenship and Workfare in the United States and Western Europe

Joel F. Handler is Richard C. Maxwell Professor of Law and Professor of Policy Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"Handler provides a powerful critique of the trend from welfare to workfare." Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal

• Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. The American Welfare Reform: 'Ending welfare as we know it': The 'undeserving poor'; 'Ending welfare as we know it'; The 'work first' strategy; The low-wage labor market; The work experience of welfare recipients; The attitudes of welfare recipients; The decline in the welfare rolls and poverty; The future; Recommendations to make welfare really work; Social citizenship in the US; Some lessons from the American experience that might be applicable to Western Europe; 3. The European welfare states: social citizenship in the golden age; The challenge of unemployment; The impact on labor; Vulnerable groups: the socially excluded; Poverty; Right, center and left - questioning the welfare state; The 'third way': from status to contract; 4. Workfare in western Europe: the United Kingdom; Ireland; Sweden; Norway; Denmark; The Netherlands; France; Germany; Risks for the socially excluded; 5. Social Europe: alternatives? Conclusions? Solutions?; Part A. Social Europe: convergence vs. path-dependent; Negative vs. positive integration; Part B. Reform at the national level; Part C. Those who remain.