The Poverty Industry

In recent years, scholarship of the American welfare state has given greater attention to the public-private partnerships that powerfully shape the provision of social assistance programs and safety net benefits. Jacob S. Hacker’s work on the employer-based private welfare state (The Divided Welfare State, 2002), Steven Rathgeb Smith and Michael Lipsky’s book on the evolution of nonprofit service organizations (Nonprofits for Hire, 1993), and Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. Schram’s arguments about the perils inherent in neoliberal paternalism (Disciplining the Poor, 2011) are notable in this regard. Into this space steps Daniel L. Hatcher’s recent book, The Poverty Industry, which further challenges scholars, advocates, and policymakers to take a critical eye to the public-private partnerships commonly present in the delivery of human services. The Poverty Industry, as the title implies, traces how private corporations and government agencies can conspire to extract resources inappropriately (and at times illegally) from human service programs that serve the most vulnerable in society: children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, individuals with disabilities, and the aged

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Poverty · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms

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