E-Book Overview
Images of poverty shape the debate surrounding it. In 1996, then President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform legislation repealing the principal federal program providing monetary assistance to poor families, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). With the president's signature this originally non-controversial program became the only title of the 1935 Social Security Act to be repealed. The legislation culminated a retrenchment era in welfare policy beginning in the early 1980s. To understand completely the welfare policy debates of the last half of the 20th Century, the various images of poor people that were present must be considered. Visions of Poverty explores these images and the policy debates of the retrenchment era, recounting the ways in which images of the poor appeared in these debates, relaying shifts in images that took place over time, and revealing how images functioned in policy debates to advantage some positions and disadvantage others. Looking to the future, Visions of Poverty demonstrates that any future policy agenda must first come to terms with the vivid, disabling images of the poor that continue to circulate. In debating future reforms, participants-whose ranks should include potential recipients-ought to imagine poor people anew. This ground breaking study in policymaking and cultural imagination will be of particular interest to scholars in rhetorical studies, political science, history, and public policy.
E-Book Content
Visions of Poverty
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Visions of Poverty Welfare Policy and Political Imagination
ROBERT ASEN
Michigan State University Press East Lansing
Copyright © 2002 by Robert Asen 0 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). Michigan State University Press East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5202 Printed and bound in the United States of America. 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Asen, Robert, 1968Visions of poverty: welfare policy and political imagination / Robert Asen. p. cm.— (Rhetoric and public affairs series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87013-600-3 (Cloth : alk. paper)— ISBN 0-87013-606-2 (Paper: alk. paper) 1. Public welfare— United States. 2. Poverty— United States. 1. Title. 11. Series. HV95 .A848 2002 36i.6'5'o973— DC21
Martin J. Medhurst, Series Editor, Texas A&M University EDITORIAL BOARD
Denise M. Bostdorff, College ofWooster G. Thomas Goodnight, Northwestern University Robert Hariman, Drake University Marouf Aziz Hasian Jr., University of Utah David Henry, University of Nevada, Las Vegas }. Michael Hogan, Venn State University Robert L. Ivie, Indiana University Jay Mechling, University of California, Davis John M. Murphy, University of Georgia David Zarefsky, Northwestern University Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania Cover design by Heather Truelove Book design by Valerie Brewster, Scribe Typography<