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Welfare Doesn't Work

The Promises of Basic Income for a Failed American Safety Net

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Leah Hamilton

    1. Department of Social Work, Appalachian State University, Boone, USA

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  • Proposes a Universal Basic Income as an alternative to the US welfare state
  • Traces the history of US approaches to poverty alleviation
  • Shows how sexism and racism have informed US welfare programs and how UBI may offer a more just alternative

Part of the book series: Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. A Tale of Two Ideas

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 1-20

  3. From Welfare to Work (In Theory)

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 21-42

  4. Perverse Incentives

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 43-60

  5. Assets and Household Stability

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 61-77

  6. The Lives of Low-Income Women

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 79-92

  7. A Two-Tiered Welfare State

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 93-106

  8. The Most Vulnerable

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 107-126

  9. The Alternative

    • Leah Hamilton
    Pages 127-140

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 141-144
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the incentives and effects of modern welfare policy, contrasted with outcomes of global basic income pilots in the past seventy years. The author contends that paternalistic and counterproductive eligibility rules in the modern American welfare state violate the human dignity of the poor and make it nearly impossible to escape the “poverty trap.” Furthermore, these types of restrictions are absent from expenditures aimed at middle and upper-income households such as mortgage interest deductions and tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Case examples from the author's years as a front-line social worker and interviews with basic income pilot recipients in Ontario, Canada, are woven throughout the book to better illustrate the effects of the current system and the hidden potential of more radical alternatives such as a universal basic income.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Social Work, Appalachian State University, Boone, USA

    Leah Hamilton

About the author

Leah Hamilton is Associate Professor of Social Work at Appalachian State University, USA. She is an Executive Committee member for the Basic Income Earth Network and President of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. 

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