Who Cares
The Social Safety Net in America
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:16th Dec '22
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£93.00(9780190074456)
The first comprehensive map of the social safety net, public and private, in the United States. Societies are often judged by how they treat their most vulnerable members: the poor and near poor. In the United States, this responsibility belongs not only to governments, but also to charities, businesses, individuals, and family members. Their combined efforts generate a social safety net. In Who Cares, Christopher Howard offers the first comprehensive map of the US social safety net. He chronicles how different parts of American society talk about poverty-related needs. And he shows what Americans do to provide basic levels of income, food, housing, medical care, and daily care. Although the US social safety net is extensive, major gaps remain, particularly impacting Blacks, Hispanics, and individuals who are not employed full-time. Drawing heavily upon evidence from the years right before the Covid-19 pandemic, Howard demonstrates that these problems persist even when the economy seems healthy. Who Cares concludes with an initial assessment of how the social safety net performed during the pandemic.
Who Cares is a fresh, informative look at the nature of the American welfare state: why do we care about some needs more than others? What's the actual level of protection afforded, and for whom? What do key actors (the public, parties and politicians, unions, and business organizations) have to say? Will the gaps exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic spur a reset, or not? Chris Howard wields his stunningly clear prose to examine both the usual policy areas (income, healthcare, food) and the often-overlooked (housing, child- and elder-care). I can't wait for the conversations this thoughtful book will prompt. * Andrea Louise Campbell, author of Trapped in America's Safety Net *
The strengths of the book include its deep dive into public opinion and its information on the roles of government, charities, and volunteers in mitigating poverty...Who Cares is suitable for undergraduate courses on social welfare, public policy, and the sociology of poverty. * Choice *
...by surveying caring commitments and practices across the public-private spectrum throughout society, the book's detailed empirical analysis greatly helps to place our collective caring efforts to aid the disadvantaged in the United States into a robust context, actually making thorough assessment more possible. For this alone, the book is an important contribution to the scholarly literature and deserving of a wide audience among the broader public. * Sanford Schram, Hunter College-City University of New York *
ISBN: 9780190074463
Dimensions: 157mm x 237mm x 23mm
Weight: 513g
352 pages