Overview
- 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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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.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
Authors and Affiliations
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.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Welfare Doesn't Work
Book Subtitle: The Promises of Basic Income for a Failed American Safety Net
Authors: Leah Hamilton
Series Title: Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37121-0
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-37120-3Published: 07 February 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-37123-4Published: 07 February 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-37121-0Published: 06 February 2020
Series ISSN: 2662-3803
Series E-ISSN: 2662-3811
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 144
Topics: Public Economics, Social Choice/Welfare Economics/Public Choice/Political Economy, US Politics, Public Policy