This report, along with its supplemental volumes, assesses the welfare system and its successes and failures, describes the frustrations felt by the poor in the United States, and proposes a basic change in public assistance policy. America's state and federal governments spend more than $150 billion a year on programs to alleviate poverty, yet…

This report provides an overview of the current welfare system. The number and size of federal public assistance programs have increased during the past 25 years, with particular growth in noncash benefit programs, which now constitute about three-quarters of all means-tested assistance. From mid-1983 to mid-1984, more than 52.5 million Americans…

These Congressional hearings contain testimony pertaining to the passage of the Community Volunteer Service Act of 1983. This bill would amend the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program to provide a more concrete mandate for the program; would have VISTA volunteers recruited locally and assigned to projects to alleviate poverty and…

Twenty years after the War on Poverty was launched, dependency on public support remains widespread. Part 1 of this report summarizes current research concerning the following issues affecting welfare programs: (1) evaluating the economic effects of welfare; (2) dynamics of dependency; (3) welfare and work; (4) welfare and family structure; (5)…