Washington’s New Poor Law: Welfare Reform and the Roads Not Taken, 1935 to the Present

The authors argue that the personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, popularly known as welfare reform , offers neither work opportunity nor real reform. In repealing the entitlement to welfare and failing to create an entitlement to work - at the same time as it imposes strict, time-limited work requirements - Washington has, in effect, written a new Poor Law.