Assets and the Poor: New American Welfare Policy

by Michael Sherraden

Overview

This work proposes a new approach to welfare: a social policy that goes beyond simple income maintenance to foster individual initiative and self-sufficiency. It argues for an asset-based policy that would create a system of saving incentives through individual development accounts (IDAs) for specific purposes, such as college education, homeownership, self-employment and retirement security. In this way, low-income Americans could gain the same opportunities that middle- and upper-income citizens have to plan ahead, set aside savings and invest in a more secure future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780873326186
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/31/1990
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Sherraden, Neil Gilbert

Table of Contents

I: Maintenance: Welfare as Income; 1: The Failure of Welfare Policy as a Failure of National Vision; 2: Income Distribution and Income Poverty; 3: The State of Welfare Theory; 4: Federal Welfare Policy—Who Benefits?; 5: The Welfare Reform Debate; II: Development: Welfare as Assets; 6: The Nature and Distribution of Assets; 7: Inheritance of Asset Inequality; 8: Toward a Theory of Welfare Based on Assets; 9: The Design of Asset-Based Welfare Policy; 10: Individual Development Accounts; 11: Examples, Proposals, Costs; 12: The Integration of Welfare Policy with Economic Goals of the Nation; 13: Summary and Conclusion