1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807928603321

Autore

Quaid Maeve

Titolo

Workfare : why good social policy ideas go bad / / Maeve Quaid

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2002

©2002

ISBN

9786612025990

1-282-02599-6

1-4426-8365-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (257 p.)

Disciplina

362.5/8/0971

Soggetti

Welfare recipients - Employment - Canada

Welfare recipients - Employment - United States

Public welfare administration - Canada

Public welfare administration - United States

Electronic books.

USA

Kanada

United States

Canada

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

What is workfare? Something, nothing, or anything and everything -- Policy chic : putting the poor to work -- California's GAIN program : the operation was a success but the patient died -- Wisconsin : Tommy Thompson and his welfare miracle -- New York City's Work Experience Program : 'same shit, different day -- 'Learnfare' in New Brunswick : tune in, turn on, drop out -- Alberta's mandatory 'voluntary opportunities' -- Ontario works program : mutiny on the bounty -- Why good ideas for bad : a six-hazard model.

Sommario/riassunto

One of the greatest, as well as the most debated, social policy ideas of the 1980s and 1990s was workfare. In Workfare: Why Good Social Policy Ideas Go Bad, Maeve Quaid delves into the definition and history



of workfare, and then continues with a critical and comparative analysis of workfare programs in six jurisdictions: three American (California, Wisconsin, New York) and three Canadian (Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick). Drawing from these case studies, Quaid develops an analytic model that illustrates how workfare falls prey to a series of hazards whereby good social policy ideas fail. Their demise, argues Quaid, begins with politicians with a zest for big ideas but little interest in implementation, continues with short-sighted policy makers, resistant bureaucrats, cynical recipients, flawed evaluations, and is completed by fleeting and fickle public attention for these news stories. Quaid's identification and analysis of these hazards is especially valuable because the hazards can also be applied to innovation in any area of social policy, such as health-care, education, pension plans, child-care, and unemployment insurance.