Description
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.
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窶埜ho 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
