NYU Press Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-Wage Jobs, and the Failure of Welfare Reform

Not Working chronicles the devastating effects of the 1996 welfare reform legislation that ended welfare as we know it. For those who now receive public assistance, “work” means pleading with supervisors for full-time hours, juggling ever-changing work schedules, and shuffling between dead-end jobs that leave one physically and psychically exhausted. Through vivid story-telling and pointed analysis, Not Working profiles the day-to-day struggles of Mexican immigrant women in the Los Angeles area, showing the increased vulnerability they face in the welfare office and labor market. The new “work first” policies now enacted impose time limits and mandate work requirements for those receiving public assistance, yet fail to offer real job training or needed childcare options, ultimately causing many families to fall deeper below the poverty line. Not Working shows that the new “welfare-to-work” regime has produced tremendous instability and insecurity for these women and their children. Moreover, the authors argue that the new politics of welfare enable greater infringements of rights and liberty for many of America's most vulnerable and constitute a crucial component of the broader assault on American citizenship. In short, the new welfare is not working. Review A smart, engaging, and groundbreaking study that exposes the racist underpinnings of welfare reform. A model of stellar scholarship and a must read for anyone seeking to understand poverty in relation to the meaning of American citizenship today.--Arlene Davila, author of Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City Original and insightful. Not Working is a powerful book, connecting theories of the state, citizenship, and globalization with first rate ethnography. It is an instant classic and will remain the definitive book on immigrant women and welfare reform for some time.--Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, author of Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence This highly significant contribution assures that Latina immigrants will no longer be invisible in scholarly research on welfare reform. This superb ethnography establishes a clear connection to the political, legal, and economic realities that is needed in reassessing the success stories of welfare reform. It should be read by all those concerned with social inequality, poverty, and justice in America.--Mary Romero, author of Maid in the U.S.A This is a scholarly, professional critique of social science research paradigms generally, and poverty knowledge industry and associated applied policy research in particular: -- "Choice: Highly recommended" With this book, Marchevsky and Theoharis make a distinct contribution to the welfare reform debate by addressing a topic that has received less attention in the literature, namely how welfare reforms have impacted immigrant. Not Working is particularly timely as immigrants become more visible as they move to less traditional U.S. regions to find work and the immigration debate rages.-- "Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare" About the Author Alejandra Marchevsky is associate professor of liberal studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Jeanne Theoharis is distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of CUNY. She is the co-editor of The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South (NYU Press, 2019), A More Beautiful and Terrible History (Beacon Press, 2018), The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Beacon Press, 2013), Want to Start A Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle (NYU Press 2009), Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education (NYU Press 2009), and Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-Wage Jobs, and the Failure of Welfare Reform (NYU Press 2006).