The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society.

• Author: Schansberg, D. Eric
• Position: Book Review

The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society By Michael Tanner Washington, D.C.: Cato Press, 2003. Pp. viii, 212. $15.00.

Michael Tanner's new book The Poverty of Welfare does not cover much new ground, but nonetheless it provides a useful summary of welfare policy--past, present, and prospective. It is eminently readable, brief but thorough, and realistic about the degree to which public welfare and private charity have been effective in the past. Thus, the book should be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of those who are interested in trying to help the poor.

Chapter 2 serves as an effective primer on the history of U.S. welfare and charity and on the evolution of both over time, including a discussion of outdoor relief, poorhouses, and fraternal organizations. Tanner closely follows Marvin Olasky's The Tragedy of American Compassion (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1992) and David Beito's From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000)--two indispensable books on this topic. He discusses the distinction that almost all aid givers made prior to the twentieth century between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor, as well as the aid givers' use of what Olasky calls "categorization" and "discernment." He also describes the late nineteenth century's increasing faith in government's ability to solve problems; the role of the Great Depression in fostering increasingly dominant federal efforts; the fact that Franklin Roosevelt's famous work-relief projects faded while his relatively modest efforts to dispense cash burgeoned; the crucial roles played by Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" and the decline in social stigma against having babies out of wedlock and receiving welfare; and the dramatic increases in welfare funding under every president since Johnson (except under Reagan, who came closer to holding the line, allowing only a 15 percent increase over eight years).

Tanner concludes his overview of welfare history by pointing to the nearly universal dissatisfaction with welfare policy in the mid-1990s from, ironically, all parts of the political spectrum. Having presented the background for understanding why substantive reform was politically possible, Tanner then turns in chapters 3 and 4 to the changes in welfare policy under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). He notes the...