Welfare System Reform

The nation's $200 billion public assistance system is a fragmented array of policies, programs, and organizations that often serves its clients poorly. In this book, experts from universities and think tanks and practitioners from all levels of government analyze serious coordination problems in the system. Cutting through the plethora of agency programs and regulations, these authorities offer practical reforms to make the system more effective, accountable, and efficient. They provide widely sought recommendations that will be useful to managers, students, scholars, experts, policymakers, and activists concerned with welfare reform and the future of public assistance programs.

The essays in the book address the coordination problem for all types of public assistance programs for all age groups and types of problems. The book provides specific analyses of the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program under the Family Support Act, job training and employment programs under the Job Training Partnership Act, programs for youth-at-risk, and particular efforts to integrate the delivery of services to public assistance recipients. The authors provide essential information about institutions, processes, and policies at the federal, state, and local levels. They define critical issues and formulate policy and administrative recommendations to improve such critical features as executive leadership, Congressional decision-making, agency management, state government planning and policy development, and local service delivery operations.

EDWARD T. JENNINGS, Jr., is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Political Science at the University of Kentucky. He has written extensively about policymaking and administration and has served as a consultant to national, state, and local agencies. He co-authored From Nation to States: The Small Cities Community Development Block Grant Programs (1986) and co-edited The Revitalization of the Public Service (1987).

NEAL S. ZANK is a consultant and Research Associate at the Center for Global Management and Research at the George Washington University. He is coauthor of Reforming Financial Systems: Policy Change and Privatization (Greenwood Press, 1991) and Welfare System Reform: Coordinating Federal, State, and Local Public Assistance Programs (Greenwood, 1993), and he has written numerous articles on job training, foreign aid, and international economic issues. Mr. Zank was Associate Director of the National Commission for Employment Policy (1990-1993) and a staff member for two Presidential commissions and the U.S. Agency for International Development.