Content area
Full text
Welfare (Opposing Viewpoints Series)
By David M. Haugen and Andrea B. Demott, co-editors Greenhaven Press/Hard cover/218 pages/2008 First Edition/ISBN 978-07377-401 &5/S25.95
In our media-intensive culture, it is easy to find differing opinions. Newspapers, magazines, radios and television talk shows resound with different points of view.
The difficulty lies in deciding which opinion to agree with and which "experts" seem the most credible. "Opposing Viewpoints" addresses this problem by presenting stimulating debates that can be used to enhance and teach these skills. The varied opinions contained in each book examine many different aspects of a single issue.
The effects of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act that summarily abolished the welfare state, which had existed since the New Deal of the 1930s, have been dramatic. With welfare-to-work strategies enforced, the number of Americans on government welfare rolls dropped by half within four years of the law's enforcement. The authors in "Welfare" debate the pros and cons of welfare reform and assess whether welfare-to-work polices achieved their intended goals more than a decade after the original legislation went into effect. Ron Haskins, a senior fellow of economic studies and co-director of the Center on Children and...