Interstate variation in welfare benefits and the migration of the poor: Substantive concerns and symbolic responses

Nearly all states are thinking about reforming their welfare systems, and several states--particularly those that offer high welfare benefits--are taking action. A major concern is that poor people are moving to high- benefit states in order to receive the benefits offered by those states. It is unclear, however, if this "welfare migration" is extensive enough to break the budgets of high-benefit states. Nevertheless, legislators in those states are seeking to stop it, usually through two-tier benefit schedules whereby new arrivals to a state are temporarily paid the welfare benefits they would have received had they remained in their original state. The authors discuss the extent to which two-tier benefit schedules represent substantive reform or symbolic action. In their estimation, current strategies for welfare reform fail to address the causes of poverty and welfare dependency and may only intensify the antagonism many Americans feel toward the poor.

Revisionist History and the Contradictions of the Neoliberal Welfare State

Reviewing: FELICE BATLAN, WOMEN AND JUSTICE FOR THE POOR: A HISTORY OF LEGAL AID, 1863-1945 (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2015); EVA BERTRAM, THE WORKFARE STATE: PUBLIC ASSISTANCE POLITICS FROM THE NEW DEAL TO THE NEW DEMOCRATS (UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS 2015)

Calling Out the Persistence of Racism

In this issue New Political Science begins a new tradition, printing an extended review essay of the book that received the Michael Harrington Book Award at the most recent American Political Science Association Meeting. The Michael Harrington Award is given for an outstanding book that demonstrates how scholarships can be used in the struggle for a better world. In 2011, the award went to Michelle Alexander for her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Color-Blindness. Sanford Schram, a member of the award committee, has contributed the below review