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This microhistory is a study of one woman's efforts in New York City between 1907 and 1911 to join the efforts of three local feminist organizations—Greenwich House, the National Consumers League, and the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL)—that were combining the energies of women from the industrial working class, middle class, and upper class in sustained drives to improve the working conditions and wages of women factory and steam laundry workers. One woman who devoted herself to these three organizational cross-class initiatives was Carola Woerishoffer (1885–1911). Microhistory is a method of studying the past that makes use of remnants of evidence still available about people, organizations, or communities that have been partially or completely forgotten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the interaction between informal networks of care and ecclesiastical authorities in seventeenth-century Scotland. Previously, studies have identified poor relief and local care as a point of contention where authorities aggressively applied socioreligious reformation and created considerable local tension. This essay argues that the kirk of Scotland could not implement a single, nationwide, policy to radically alter palliative care networks as they were so variable, dependent upon local context and necessary to local life. Rather, ecclesiastical authorities accepted a variety of informal arrangements that directly impinged on their own disciplinary drive. Moreover, the essay shows that informal networks of care would co-opt official structures blurring the traditional image of polarized institutional and informal modes of care. Such relationships advance our understanding of how Reformed behavioral ideals interacted with local necessity and circumstance, while maintaining general control of the parish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Work / Praca Socjalna is the property of Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej im Marii Grzegorzewskiej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Neoliberal political reasoning is remaking the state's democratic character and its governing rules to reflect those of the market. The most prominent legislative example, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, dictates work requirements, time limits, and monitoring and sanctioning of clients. Through such policies, the primary aims of government assistance changed from aiding needy citizens to transforming individuals into paid workers, regardless of continued poverty or care obligations. Although scholarship of related policy and governance tools has grown, less study has centered on understanding the historic events and ways in which race-based, gendered, and poverty narratives facilitated adoption of such austere policies. This article compares circumstances of African American and White mothers in the United States from the Revolutionary War to the postwelfare era. It describes what neoliberalism is, discusses the role of ideological discourses in policy and governance, presents the history and historical racialized portrayals of White and African American motherhood during this period, and analyzes the differential impact of ideological discourses using a lens of intersectionality. The conclusion discusses how discriminatory discourses subvert a democratic ethos for all and suggests ways for social workers to contest the impacts of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of American governments in the twentieth century included large increases in funds for social insurance and public assistance. Social insurance has increased far more than public assistance, so "rise in the social insurance state" is a far better description of the century than "rise in the welfare state." The United States has increased total spending in these areas as much or more as have European countries, but the U.S. spending has relied less heavily on government programs. In the U.S. states largely determine the benefits for many of the public assistance and social insurance programs, leading to large variation in the benefits across the country. I develop estimates of these benefits across time and place and compare them to the poverty line, manufacturing earnings and benefits, state per capita incomes in the US, as well as GDP per capita in countries throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike many other countries, Canada does not have a publicly funded school lunch program. Instead, parents are responsible for feeding their children during school hours, and charitable organizations attempt to fill gaps for children living in poverty. Canadian activists have mounted a campaign for a federally funded school meal program to address numerous issues affecting children's health, including an 'obesity crisis.' Our examination of the historical record suggests contemporary school meal advocates are in a position similar to the early 1940s, when there was great public concern about a 'crisis of malnutrition' that was undermining the strength of the nation. There was widespread support for a federally funded school meal program as part of a social democratic vision for a 'social minimum' to support Canadians' well-being. However, the federal government adopted only one of many recommendations for a social minimum, the Family Allowance, which provided monthly cash payments to families. The 1940s campaign for federally funded school meals fizzled because the federal government saw the Family Allowance as an adequate solution to the problem of child malnutrition and, in keeping with its liberal welfare state ideology, preferred to keep responsibility for children's well-being with the family, not the state. In addition, the scientific consensus about the constitution of malnutrition shifted, an important pilot test studying school meals' nutritional benefits provided inconclusive results, and a key advocate died. The historical record supports Crenshaw's contention that demands for change that are outside the dominant ideology are rarely adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-taught history of social work may be missing an important part of its root system. Groups of religious sisters were doing work similar to early English settlement houses years before Toynbee Hall, yet were left out of the history possibly due to their gender, religion, and ethnicity. Using original historic writings and illustrations, this article looks at the early work of women religious – the preferred name for vowed religious women of various faiths – and how they may have had a direct influence on the work of early settlements, an influence not included in social welfare history. The authors call for a social justice response by adding the work of women religious to social welfare history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the eviction of the mixed race population of Malaga Island in Maine. She mentions the eugenics movement that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the economic decline in Maine that lead to a greater drain by public welfare, and the combination of motives to destroy the Malaga community.

Workfare, the conditioning of public assistance on work, was first institutionalized into US policy via refugee resettlement policy, thus arguably laying the groundwork for the 1996 welfare reforms. Refugee scholars have examined how implementing agents respond to the mandates of workfare as well as other delimitations of policy structures, but the ensuing influence on refugees is less examined. Drawing from 40 interviews and four focus groups with organizational leaders and worker-volunteers of a refugee community as a case study, this article examines how self-sufficiency as a resettlement policy goal manifests at the end of the policy line. We argue that diminution of self-sufficiency into job placement reflects a work-first, time-limited focus, while deindividualization conveys neglect for individual circumstances. We also argue that the implementation of self-sufficiency as a policy goal, even as it is diminished and deindividualized, manifests with valuation, denoting how acts of implementation carry value-laden expressions that idealize the refugee-worker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Within a narrative of how two distinct graduate social work internship placements at a humane society were structured and implemented, we address: (1) historic and contemporary rationales for social work roles in humane society settings, (2) development of social work field placements in a humane society, and (3) specific social work learning opportunities afforded. Findings The first petition for removal of a child due to abuse in the United States occurred in 1874 through efforts of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals director. While child protection services have evolved since then, numerous aspects of human–animal interaction are relevant to social work: social support roles of animals, connections between violence toward animals and violence toward humans, therapeutic benefits of animals, companion animal loss, and compassion fatigue among animal shelter and veterinary staff. Encompassing such HAI aspects, we describe the development of two distinct internship placements at a humane society. One placement entailed a twofold focus on: reduction of staff compassion fatigue and development of an Emotional Support Animal placement program (the Hope and Recovery Pet Program); the other placement focused on aspects of the connection between violence toward animals and violence toward people. Applications Aspects of these social work placements can be modified and replicated in humane societies and related settings. Increased awareness of the potential relevance of human–animal interaction across social work practice settings allows for explicit identification of/response to clients' human–animal interaction-related strengths and concerns, ultimately supporting the well-being of both humans and animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of aging in capitalist West Germany and Communist East Germany in the 1950s. It explores the relationship of the history of aging with broader histories of political economy, welfare and citizenship. The creation of a new policy environment for older people between 1956 and 1958 is explored. Also discussed is the connection between German modernization and the exclusion and isolation of the elderly.

Since 1937 calling for help has meant dialing three digits on a telephone. "999"—the emergency telephone number originally devised in London as the call signal for police, fire brigade, or ambulance assistance—has been appropriated as the model of emergency communications in 162 countries to date (with variations in the specific number used, such as 911 in America). In this article, I argue that the emergency number system provides a lens to rethink the relationship between citizens, state, and local communities in the diverse historical and geographical settings of its introduction, taking as case studies the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and New Zealand. The system has enhanced the possibilities for citizens to intervene in rescuing one another from "danger" by enabling them to coordinate the speed and location of state response to an event deemed an emergency. It thereby rests on an idea of citizenship characterized by active and reciprocal surveillance of each other's behavior, as well as democratized access to medical or other emergency assistance. However, this article suggests that the system has been marked by its uneven distribution in economically deprived communities (conditioned by the commercial imperatives of telephone companies), reinforcing inequalities of access to state services along lines of wealth, class, and race both domestically and internationally. I therefore suggest it compromised the apparatus of "British" social democracy in this era, cultivating new forms of political and consumer activism among social groups demanding access to telephones for emergency assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both interpretive and positivist research were a daily part of early work by social workers in settlement houses of the US Social Workers from 1902 to 1922 at Greenwich House, a settlement house (neighborhood center) founded on the west side of Greenwich Village, New York City in 1902, involved themselves in diverse investigative methods. As this analysis reveals, Greenwich House workers pursued case studies of families, residential blocks, neighborhoods, and workplaces; ethnographic depictions of an alley and a garment workers’ strike; participant-observation of tenement households, small businesses, street life, and urban factories; and social surveys on the sanitary conditions and degree of housing congestion in the neighborhoods surrounding Greenwich House. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on confraternal charitable institutions developed by patrician families in Bologna, Italy from the 1490s to the 1530s. Comprehensive overhaul of social assistance on the municipal level; Plan dubbed as Opera dei Mendicanti; Workable comprehensive program of municipal poor relief.

The article discusses efforts by groups such as the Georgia Poverty Rights Organization (GPRO) to promote welfare program funding in Georgia during the 1970s. Topics include disputes over state funding of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, the role of black voters in supporting welfare programs, and the work of the groups Atlanta Welfare Rights Organization (AWRO) and Committee of Concerned Agencies (CCA).

For centuries, vagrancy was considered a major hotbed of crime. Roaming beggars and vagabonds, many observers believed, were to a large extent responsible for offenses such as theft and arson. As historical research on the early modern period has shown, females constituted a significant proportion of the vagrant population, and according to crime statistics, this was still true up until the middle of the nineteenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the image changed quite radically: While convictions of men for begging and vagabondage increased, the female share dropped away toward zero. How can this shift in gender ratios be explained? Does it reflect changing attitudes on the part of the criminal justice system or on the part of potential offenders? This paper argues that both sides have to be taken into account. The first section outlines how begging and vagabondage were defined by nineteenth-century law and takes a closer look at the evidence given by statistical records. The second section discusses possible reasons behind the conspicuous vanishing of female beggars and vagabonds, focusing on the backdrop of evolving welfare provisions and migration patterns. The final section sums up the findings and comes back to the question of what vagrancy has do to with crime in general. The assumption that begging and vagabondage inevitably led to more serious transgressions had largely become a myth by the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, these petty offenses played an important role in shaping gender identities in relation to societal norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relation of the Supplementary Security Income (SSI) welfare program in the U.S. to HIV infection in the U.S. during the administration of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Topics include the treatment of people with AIDS (PWA) in relation to Medicaid and healthcare access, the social impact of the definition of AIDS by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the definition of disability by the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA). Social conditions of poor people, LGBT people, and minorities are noted.

Central to the contemporary American welfare state, nonprofits are increasingly squeezed between declining resources and a simultaneous peak in demand for services. Scholars have outlined a number of ways that nonprofits strategically respond to resource scarcity. Why nonprofits select particular strategies, however, is less clear. This article motivates a network membership perspective via a mixed-methods study of one food bank and its associated food pantries, wherein actors navigate competing network demands that are emblematic of those faced by other nonprofits. Food banks source food from three types of networks--a cartel-like network orchestrated by a national coordinating body, a peer-to-peer inter-food bank network, and a bureaucratic network anchored by the USDA--that place overlapping and conflicting constraints on the organizations. In combination, network demands entangle the food banks within a web of tensions that prevent many forms of adaptation while enabling others, a predicament I refer to in this article as network entrapment. How organizations navigate network demands has implications for the vitality of the organizations and the well-being of their beneficiaries. My results suggest that entrapment can lead to organizational burden and the adoption of neoliberal-inspired efficiencies, but also innovations that prioritize citizen rights over cost-benefit ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a November 16-17, 2017 conference of the Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen welfare society on the history of social institutions. Topics of presentations delivered include the history of hospitals in Hesse, Germany, modern Austrian hospital legislation, and the history of old age care centers in Vienna, Austria.

This study investigates the effects of welfare reform in the United States in the 1990s on voting among low-income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of welfare reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period in which welfare reform unfolded. During this time period, voter turnout was decreasing in the United States. We find robust evidence that welfare reform led to smaller declines in voting (about 3 to 4 percentage points, which translates to about 10% relative to the baseline mean) for women who were exposed to welfare reform compared to several different comparison groups of similar women who were much less exposed. The robust findings suggest that welfare reform had prosocial effects on civic participation, as characterized by voting. The effects were largely confined to presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income. (JEL D72, H53, I38, J21) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the factors shaping longitudinal patterns of housing insecurity in the wake of the Great Recession, with a focus on whether housing assistance helped renters who received it. We use data from the first two waves (2009-10 and 2011) of the Michigan Recession and Recovery Study, a population-representative sample of working-age adults from Southeast Michigan. We use detailed reports from renters and other nonhomeowners to construct measures of instability and cost-related housing problems at both waves, and we compare the changes in these over follow up between housing assistance recipients and their income-eligible but nonrecipient counterparts. Our findings suggest that receiving housing assistance reduced the chance of experiencing housing insecurity problems over follow up regardless of baseline housing insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various forms of housing exclusion are a reality for millions of people across the globe. For people who are homeless in advanced industrialized economies, housing exclusion often co-exists with social service engagement. This essay reviews three books about how homelessness is conceptualized and caused, and how we, as social service providers and social scientists, respond to homelessness: Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Transforming Systems, and Changing Lives, by Deborah Padgett, Benjamin Henwood, and Sam Tsemberis; Women Rough Sleepers in Europe: Homelessness and Victims of Domestic Abuse, by Kate Moss and Paramjit Singh; and The Value of Homelessness: Managing Surplus Life in the United States, by Craig Willse. It concludes that Housing First achieves justice for deeply marginalized individuals but that the effectiveness of Housing First represents a disturbing reminder of our failed welfare states and public institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

White presence within welfare bureaucracies in the United States has historically been associated with discriminatory practices against welfare recipients. Despite considerable qualitative evidence, there has been limited empirical work examining how the presence of white caseworkers actually affects recipient outcomes. This article takes a first step in addressing this question. By matching county-level data on eligibility workers in government programs with individual-level data on welfare recipients, I show that the racial composition of welfare bureaucracies does matter for recipients. First, when work requirements are involved, a stronger presence of white eligibility workers is associated with a higher probability of exiting welfare due to a sanction for all recipients. Second, in the case of nonwork requirements, the presence of white eligibility workers increases the likelihood of a sanction termination only for black recipients. I discuss how the racial gap in welfare attitudes and racial discrimination could explain the empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about “American exceptionalism” in social policy, but one aspect has received relatively little attention thus far: the absence of universal public social programs where entitlements to benefits and services are derived from citizenship or residency. This absence is especially striking because other liberal welfare regimes such as Canada and the United Kingdom have long developed such programs. Focusing on policy design and using Canada as a contrasting case, this article explains why there are no universal social programs in the United States, a country where the dichotomy between social assistance and social insurance dominates. The empirical analysis focuses on three policy areas: health, pensions, and family benefits. Stressing the impact of institutional factors on policy design, the article adopts a historical institutionalist approach and shows that the explanation for the absence of universal social programs varies from one policy area to the next. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Signed on 23rd September 1822, the Constitution of the Portuguese Nation stated that the Cortes (Constituent Assembly) and the government would be responsible for the "preservation, establishment and increase" of welfare institutions, with the exception of those controlled by the local councils, which would be responsible for the area of public health. The wording of the Constitution indicated the failure of the Public Health Commission, which had been unable to obtain approval for its reformist ideas, in particular municipal control of welfare and health. This was the outcome of more than a year and a half of debates and numerous petitions discussed in Parliament or simply analyzed by the commission. The aim of this study is to examine this field and question the ideas presented by the liberals as revolutionary in the public health sphere in light of the experiences of previous decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread contemporary legends assumed to be “everywhere”pose distinct methodological challenges to documenting living traditions in context. Welfare legends, for example, have persisted in the United States since before the 1960s, yet no vernacular texts exist in scholarly publication. This paper examines the vernacular tradition o f welfare legends in face-to-face and online contexts in order to advocate for specific methodological strategies for collecting and analyzing widespread contemporary legends; to examine the boundaries, core claims, performance contexts, and uses of welfare legends in vernacular discourse; and ultimately to suggest a more inclusive approach to the study of contemporary legends [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though Dutch poor relief has been appreciated by historians for the financial stability and generous assistance given to the poor, this paper examines the harsh reality to poor relief in the late eighteenth-century Netherlands. Using archival material from the Reformed Diaconate in Rotterdam, this paper deals with regulations for poor relief, compliance with them and its achievements and attempts at reform to show that not only strangers but also residents were often unable to receive (additional) alms due to strict regulations. This work also demonstrates that the notion of 'overly generous poor re lie f and 'lazy poor' shared by the Deaconate and city authorities led to the tightening of the rules for almsgiving and adherence to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the post-Second World War Finnish discussion on disability pension and vocational rehabilitation policies. It argues that the principle of activation, which has been linked to the recent neoliberal workfare turn in social policy, has in fact remained as one of the guiding principles of disability policy during the entire post-war period. During the 1940s, the Finnish disability policy was established on the principles of compensation and activation, as the disability pension scheme was limited to those who had participated in working life and vocational rehabilitation to those who were evaluated to have the potential to do so in the future. At the turn of the 1960s, the compensation principle was overtaken by the principle of need as the newly adopted goal of constructing the Finnish welfare state materialized in the demands for a universal pension policy and extending vocational rehabilitation to those who had previously been labeled as unprofitable targets. However, the traditional disability policies began to receive criticism during the 1980s as the conception of disability changed from being viewed as an individual defect raising a need for segregated services and environments to a minority status entitling a person to supportive measures enabling him or her to participate in the normal society. This also problematized the traditional divide between the need-based and work-based systems of distribution by raising the question on disability pensioners' entitlement to participate in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Providence House of Industry was never more than an idea. It was not even a particularly unique idea. By 1859, when this one was almost made, Houses of Industry had existed for more than one hundred and fifty years in the English-speaking world. Such institutions were a rising trend in the northern United States that year, and the Providence House of Industry was well researched and well planned. Supporters of the institution believed it would reduce poverty in the midst of a depression, while also keeping poor relief costs down. The rationale, the construction site, the building materials, the financing details, were all laid out. What is more, this big idea had powerful backers: the mayor, the overseer of the poor, and many other prominent citizens wanted it to become a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In historiography, the functioning of poor relief has often been explained by focussing on a single prime mover, be it elite ambition to control labour (cfr. Lis & Soly), or the need for social groups to protect themselves because of growing urban anonymity (cfr. Lynch). Recently however, several researchers suggested that the functioning and extent of relief were characterised by outspoken regional differences, in this article we want to further explore this suggestion by using the potential of the Low Countries' countryside as an ideal laboratory to test the impact of regionally diverging social structures on the extent and functioning of relief. Not only did all its communities share the same relief institution, the poor table, it was furthermore characterised by the presence of all types of societies: from very commercial (coastal Flanders), over proto-industrial (inland Flanders), to communally organised (Campine area). By analysing poor table accounts for all three regions we aim to illustrate how the extent of relief was determined by the distribution of power and the level of social homogeneity within a given region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article draws upon board and meal deduction correspondence to provide context for a unique form of civil protest the Colored Trainmen of America (CTA) labor union members used to challenge segregated public spaces. It mentions how during the Jim Crow era the African American railroad workers of the CTA effectively used company issued board and meal deduction privileges to negotiate better treatment.

The "mixed economy of welfare" is one of the most popular concepts in the history of welfare. Even though a growing body of recent work has illustrated the relationship between different providers of welfare, philanthropic organisations have been widely ignored. This paper will shed some light on this blind spot by focussing on the relationship between state and philanthropic action concerning social welfare. Using the example of the Swiss charitable organisation Pro Senectute, I will argue that the emerging welfare state in the first half of the 20th century did not crowd out Pro Senectute. In fact both Pro Senectute and the state were closely intertwined and its charitable work was a key component in the emerging welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on poor relief in Göttingen in the late 19th century. It provides insight into the practical cooperation of different actors in a "mixed economy of welfare". Different actors played an important role in providing help to the poor: the municipal poor relief, as well as various philanthropic associations and congregations, built up assistance programs for indigents, and in addition, the University of Göttingen and other foundations rendered support. How did these various actors work together? And what was their motivation in supporting the poor? In answering these questions, the paper focuses on the structure of the different systems of poor relief, the interactions of the various actors in a "mixed economy of welfare" and also on the work of the most influential people. The many overlaps and the form of cooperation achieved between poor relief and society as a whole make clear that a fundamental opposition between the authority of municipal poor relief on the one hand, and voluntary action on the other, did not exist in the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines efforts by a group of blind people in late 20th-century Hungary to create a guide-dog training school, and to reopen the school and gain control of its management after it was closed by Hungarian authorities. Particular focus is given to concepts of agency and welfare dictatorship as related to the grassroots activism of disabled people under state socialism. According to the author, disabled people in both capitalist and socialist states faced similar struggles.

The article explores the history of food systems, social welfare, gender, and the working-class in the U.S. South following passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The author analyzes the efforts of civil rights attorneys and activists such as Marian Wright and Henry Aronson of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund (NAACP LDEF). Emphasis is given to topics such as the Food Stamp program and African Americans in rural Mississippi.

The article discusses U.S. unemployment policy during the Interwar Period of the early 1920s, including the role that the U.S. government played in offering services to the unemployed and the paternalist aspects of the policy. The role that U.S. Secretary of Commerce and future President Herbert Hoover played in developing U.S. welfare policy for the unemployed is discussed. The former U.S. colonel Arthur Woods' involvement in the 1921 President’s Conference on Unemployment is also discussed.

Many provinces have enacted substantial reforms of their social assistance regime in the 1990s. However, we know surprisingly little about the ideas that underlie welfare reform in Canada. In particular, few empirical studies have directly examined the ideas of policy actors. This article presents a retrospective case study of a major policy initiative, namely Saskatchewan’s Building Independence (BI), and examines its alignment with three paradigms of social assistance. Data come primarily from interviews with policy actors. This study concludes that the policy ideas informing BI align closely with the activation paradigm but also share some similarities with the entitlement and workfare paradigms. The significance of this finding is then discussed in light of three issues: 1) Aboriginal people, 2) the perspective of social assistance clients, and 3) “Third Way” ideology. This article concludes with a research agenda on ideas and policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaving millions both uninsured and underinsured, the Affordable Care Act does not create a system of universal health care in the United States. To understand its shortcomings, we have to understand it as part of a historic shift in the political economy of American health care. This “neoliberal turn” began as a reaction against the welfare state as it expanded during the New Deal and post-World War II period. What began as a movement associated with philosophers like Friedrich Hayek ultimately had a powerful impact via the attraction of powerful corporate sponsors and political supporters, and it was to historically transform American health care thought and organization. In health policy circles, for example, it can be seen in a rising emphasis on “moral hazard,” overuse, and cost sharing above a concern with universalism and equity. It was likewise manifested by the corporatization of the health maintenance organization and the rise of the “consumer-driven” health care movement. By the time of the health care reform debate, the influence of corporate “stakeholders” was to prove predominant. These developments, however, must be construed as connected parts of a much larger political transformation, reflected in rising inequality and privatization, occurring both domestically and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the extent and nature of hospital and almshouse provision in early modern Scotland. It suggests that in order to understand early modern poor relief more fully, more attention needs to be paid to the variety of possible sources of welfare, not all necessarily associated with Poor Laws and compulsory or statutory provision. Hospital provision was an important component of welfare, and indeed was closely related to the wider apparatus of relief. The article argues in particular that the Protestant Reformation of 1560 was an important factor in improving both the provision of funding for hospitals, and the effectiveness of their administration. Although it initially posed a potential threat to the network of late-medieval hospitals and caused some disruption, the Reformation's creation of a network of local church courts, and in particular the kirk session, was crucial to the operation of both surviving pre-Reformation hospitals and the new foundations which emerged in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The article also assesses the limitations of the church's achievements, and notes that rural areas enjoyed much less secure hospital provision. Finally, the article offers a case-study of life in Glasgow hospitals, moving beyond the institutional mechanisms involved in hospital fundraising and administration to explore the experiences of inmates themselves. Future studies of early modern poverty will need to take much greater account of hospitals' role in the ecology of relief, and of the church's ongoing role in welfare provision, narratives of secularisation notwithstanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African Americans' poverty and deep-poverty rates are higher than those of Whites, and African Americans ' poverty spells last longer. Furthermore, nonpoor African Americans are especially likely to slip into poverty, and over the course of a lifetime, very many African Americans will experience poverty. Accordingly, African Americans are disproportionately likely to be assisted by safety net programs providing income support and health and social assistance. When mental health-related outcomes are assessed, U.S.-focused and international studies of safety net programs sometimes find that adults and children show a decline in symptoms of mental illness after participating. All things being equal, these improvements can disproportionately benefit African Americans' mental health. Safety net programs' mental health-related impact should be routinely assessed when evaluating the programs' economic and social outcomes and the impact they have on African Americans' mental health. Policy research of this kind can help us to understand whether these very large interventions show society-wide mental health-related improvement in the disproportionately large number of African Americans who participate in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 1918 foundation of the modern Ukrainian nation by Hetman Pavlo Skoropads’kyj and the provision of public welfare services to Ukrainian veterans and casualties of World War I including orphans, refugees, and prisoners of war. Skoropads’kyj's leadership of Ukraine is evaluated, information on his launch of a national health service is offered, and conflict between the government of Skoropads’kyj and demonstrating Ukrainian peasant farmers is described. Historiographic works on this period of Ukrainian history by historians including Peter Borowsky, Wlodzimierz Medrzecki, and Frank Grelka are criticized.