Reassessing the Conventional Wisdom: Entitlements from the Inside

Abstract

A family tragedy enables a social policy scholar to examine how American social assistance works from the recipient perspective. The experience results in a reexamination of conventional wisdom around US social policy. In contrast to the revisionist account, meager social assistance programs are still pretty meager. Despite the bifurcation between deserving and undeserving beneficiaries, some deserving populations are swept into catch-all means-tested programs and fare badly. Finally, the experience forces a new look at research approaches to social policy. More qualitative and ethnographic work is needed, as well as examinations of the interactions among multiple programs and their complicated and often contradictory rules.