The American Way of Welfare: Providing for those who can't provide for themselves

About the Book

What if many of the most widely accepted assumptions about the welfare state are wrong?

In The American Way of Welfare, Chris Pope challenges conventional wisdom about poverty, inequality, and taxation. Among the book's most provocative findings:

• The United States does not raise less tax revenue from the rich than western European countries; it just takes much less from those who aren't rich. (Page 116)
• The idea that expansive European welfare states are helping the working poor has very little basis in fact. They're mostly redistributing from the working poor to non-workers of all social classes. (Page 125)
• The United States does not have greater inequality than other developed nations because it has more poor people, but because its non-poor earn a lot more. (Page 130)

About the Author

Christopher Pope is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Previously, he was director of policy research at West Health, health-policy fellow at the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and research manager at the American Enterprise Institute. He holds a B.Sc. in government and economics from the London School of Economics and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Washington University in St. Louis.

Praise

"Americans have always argued that government support should supplement rather than substitute for individual responsibility and work. But in practice, America’s entitlement programs have long evolved away from that ideal. In this important and path-breaking book, Chris Pope brilliantly shows how that happened, and how we might pursue a better path. This is essential reading for our future."  – Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs

"When I worked in the White House on contentious health policy issues, I often heard someone ask, 'What does Chris Pope say about this?' In his career on Capitol Hill, in think tanks and private sector policy shops he has distinguished himself as one of the clearest thinkers on some of the most complicated policy problems America faces. In The American Way of Welfare, Chris lays out – in a cogent and ambitious work – the history of American social service programs and argues why we need to return to the original national consensus of why some people need government help, but why most of us should be left alone.'" – Joe Grogan, former director of the United States Domestic Policy Council

"Chris Pope begins with a simple idea. If individual choice and market competition can meet our needs, government should get out of the way. We only need government if there are important needs that the private sector leaves unmet. Unfortunately, the welfare state violates this principle – by making financial promises it cannot afford, trying to do for people that which they can easily do for themselves, and failing to give help to the truly needy along the way. This book is a must read for anyone concerned about social insurance and its promises and failures in the United States." – John Goodman, author of New Way to Care