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Economic Policy
Posted inEconomic Policy
Can We Put a Time Limit on Welfare?
Clinton’s proposal for a two-year limit on AFDC payments would be the most far-reaching welfare reform since 1935. But if the goal is to make welfare mothers self-sufficient, it won’t be cheap.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Moral Equivalent of War Production
Restoration of robust growth is the paramount challenge facing the nation, the most significant issue of the 1992 election, and the first task that will face a new administration. Indeed, all other important public questions are being held hostage to a sick economy that depresses aspiration, increases unemployment, de pletes revenue, and makes public remediation […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
From “Projects” to Communities: How to Redeem Public Housing
Saving public housing will require more than bootstrap lectures and selling off units to tenants. To transform housing projects into safe communities requires a new balance of rights and responsibilities—and real resources.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Liberalism, Socialism, and Democracy
What, if anything, can be usefully salvaged from the socialist tradition, now that communism lies in final disgrace? Paul Starr argued in these pages last fall that four developments — the implosion of communism, the collapse of efforts to reform communism from within, the failure of socialism in the Third World, and the shift of […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Flexibility Trap: The Proliferation of Marginal Jobs
Temporary and part-time jobs may be penny-wise for employers, but pound-foolish for the economy.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Myth of a Savings Shortage
A precipitous decline in saving during the 1980s? A closer look shows it isn’t so.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Social Support for Self-Reliance: The Politics of Making Work Pay
Millions of the working poor earn less than the minimum needed for self-sufficiency. Enabling these families to achieve security is good policy—and smart politics.