"A superb collection that paints a clear, if not especially bright, picture: Inequality is widening in America largely because our democracy isn't working as it should. Read Remaking America and commit yourself to doing something about it."
-ROBERT B. REICH, professor of public policy, University of California at Berkeley

"Remaking America is a remarkable collection featuring original contributions from many leading analysts of U.S. democracy and public policy. Far from the usual arid collection of prescriptions, this book gives us the big picture: how U.S. tax and social programs have been reconfigured over recent decades, and what difference the changes make for governance and participation. We learn that policies are not only the result of ongoing political struggles; they also reshape the capacities of government and the ideas and engagement of citizens and social groups. Unfolding policies and their political effects say much about the nation's capacity to react-or not-to the deleterious effects of rising socioeconomic inequality. Students, scholars, and members of the educated public have much to learn from this insightful volume."
-THEDA SKOCPOL, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology and dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Over the past three decades, the contours of American social, economic, and political life have changed dramatically. The post-war patterns of broadly distributed economic growth have given way to stark inequalities of income and wealth, the GOP and its allies have gained power and shifted U.S. politics rightward, and the role of government in the lives of Americans has changed fundamentally. Remaking America explores how these trends are related, investigating the complex interactions of economics, politics, and public policy.

Remaking America explains how the broad restructuring of government policy has both reflected and propelled major shifts in the character of inequality and democracy in the United States. The contributors explore how recent political and policy changes affect not just the social standing of Americans but also the character of democratic citizenship in the United States today. Lawrence Jacobs shows how partisan politics, public opinion, and interest groups have shaped the evolution of Medicare, but also how Medicare itself restructured health politics in America. Kimberly Morgan explains how highly visible tax policies created an opportunity for conservatives to lead a grassroots tax revolt that ultimately eroded of the revenues needed for social-welfare programs. Deborah Stone explores how new policies have redefined participation in the labor force—as opposed to fulfilling family or civic obligations—as the central criterion of citizenship. Frances Fox Piven explains how low-income women remain creative and vital political actors in an era in which welfare programs increasingly subject them to stringent behavioral requirements and monitoring. Joshua Guetzkow and Bruce Western document the rise of mass incarceration in America and illuminate its unhealthy effects on state social-policy efforts and the civic status of African-American men.

For many disadvantaged Americans who used to look to government as a source of opportunity and security, the state has become increasingly paternalistic and punitive. Far from standing alone, their experience reflects a broader set of political victories and policy revolutions that have fundamentally altered American democracy and society. Empirically grounded and theoretically informed, Remaking America connects the dots to provide insight into the remarkable social and political changes of the last three decades.

JOE SOSS is the Cowles Professor for the Study of Public Service at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.

JACOB S. HACKER is professor of political science at Yale University and resident fellow of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

SUZANNE METTLER is Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Andrea Louise Campbell, Richard B. Freeman, Joshua Guetzkow, Jennifer Hochschild,  Helen Ingram,  Lawrence R. Jacobs,  R. Shep Melnick,  Kimberly J. Morgan,  Frances Fox Pivens,  Paul Pierson,  Joel Rogers,  Sanford F. Schram,  Deborah Stone,  Vasla Weaver,  Bruce Western.  

"Amply documented and methodologically precise, this volume provides a definitive socioeconomic assessment of earnings inequality and racial divisions in Atlanta."
- Choice

"The Atlanta Paradox is among the most important contributions of the past decade to our understanding of racial patterns of economic disadvantage in U.S. metropolitan regions. If we rank metropolitan regions by how much we understand about such matters, Atlanta just moved to the top!"
- RONALD F. FERGUSON, Harvard University

"This is an important and rigorous book. It offers a unique statistical snapshot of the South's leading city in the late 20th century-demonstrating the extent of the Atlanta paradox and offering explanations for its persistence."
- Southeastern Geographer

Despite the rapid creation of jobs in the greater Atlanta region, poverty in the city itself remains surprisingly high, and Atlanta's economic boom has yet to play a significant role in narrowing the gap between the suburban rich and the city poor. This book investigates the key factors underlying this paradox.

The authors show that the legacy of past residential segregation as well as the more recent phenomenon of urban sprawl both work against inner city blacks. Many remain concentrated near traditional black neighborhoods south of the city center and face prohibitive commuting distances now that jobs have migrated to outlying northern suburbs.

The book also presents some promising signs. Few whites still hold overt negative stereotypes of blacks, and both whites and blacks would prefer to live in more integrated neighborhoods. The emergence of a dynamic, black middle class and the success of many black-owned businesses in the area also give the authors reason to hope that racial inequality will not remain entrenched in a city where so much else has changed.

DAVID L. SJOQUIST is professor of economics in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Ronald H. Bayor, Irene Browne, Obie Clayton Jr., Nikki McIntyre Finlay, Christopher R. Geller, Gary Paul Green, Roger B. Hammer, Truman A. Hartshorn, Cynthia Lucas Hewitt, Keith R. Ihlanfeldt, Sahadeo Patram, Travis Patton, David L. Sjoquist, Mark A. Thompson, and Leann M. Tigges

A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality

After acts of airline terrorism, air travel tends to drop dramatically—yet Americans routinely pursue the far riskier business of driving cards, where accidents resulting in death or injury are much more likely to occur. Reporting on Risk argues that this selective concern with danger is powerfully shaped by the media, whose coverage of potentially hazardous events is governed more by a need to excite the public than to inform it.

Singer and Endreny survey a wide range of print and electronic media to provide an unprecedented look at how hundreds of different hazards are presented to the public—from toxic waste and food poisoning to cigarette smoking, from transportation accidents to famine, and from experimental surgery to communicable diseases. Their investigations raise thought-provoking questions about what the media tell us about modern risks, which hazards are covered and which ignored, and how the media determine when hazards should be considered risky. Are natural hazards reported differently than man-made hazards? Is greater emphasis placed on the potential benefits or the potential drawbacks of complex new technologies? Are journalists more concerned with reporting on unproven cures or informing the public about preventative measures? Do newspapers differ from magazines and television in their risk reporting practices?

Reporting on Risk investigates how the media place blame for disasters, and looks at how the reporting of risks has changed in the past twenty-five years as such hazards as nuclear power, birth control methods, and industrial by-products have grown in national prominence. The authors demonstrate that the media often fail to report on risks until energized by the occurrence of some disastrous or dramatic event—the Union Carbide pesticide leak in Bhopal, the Challenger explosion, the outbreak of famine in Somalia, or the failed transplant of a baboon heart to "Baby Fae." Sustained attention to these hazards depends less on whether the underlying issues have been resolved than on whether they continue to unfold in newsworthy events.

Reporting on Risk examines the accuracy and the amount of information we receive about our environment. It offers a critical perspective on how our perceptions of risk, as shaped by the media, may contribute to misguided individual and public choices for action and prevention in an increasingly complex world. The authors' probing assessment of how the media report a vast array of risks offers insights useful to journalists, policy analysts, risk specialists, legislators, and concerned citizens.

ELEANOR SINGER is senior research scholar at the Center for the Social Sciences, Columbia University, and social science analyst with the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

PHYLLIS M. ENDRENY is social research consultant in Chicago, and was previously assistant professor of mass communications and mass media at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"All modern nations-even Norway, even Japan-contradict themselves: they contain multitudes. How are such contradictions to be dealt with, such multitudes managed? This series of vivid and circumstantial case studies of everything from group rights in India and religious conflicts in France to customary marriages in South Africa and cultural defenses in American courts reveals the depth of the problems posed to democratic governments by cultural difference, how they are being approached, and what the results have been. A searching discussion of an urgent issue."
-CLIFFORD GEERTZ, INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY

"A lively, deeply insightful discussion of the profound ethical dilemmas posed by the unexpected collision of two of liberalism's favored assumptions."
-JEROME KAGAN, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

"Engaging Cultural Differences provides a fresh analysis on aspects of the challenges facing liberal pluralistic societies as they attempt to accommodate the cultural values and preferences of their new citizens. It includes penetrating perspectives that call for a reevaluation of the dominant theories on the subject. A must read for scholars and policy makers reflecting on the impact of emigration on Western societies and the dynamics of integration and assimilation in the age of globalization."
-YVONNE YABECK HADDAD, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY OF ISLAM AND CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM RELATIONS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

"The question of cultural difference has long been a double- pronged thorn in the side of liberalism. It has dented confident assertions of universal individual rights with allegations of discrimination. And it has punctured claims of broadly based tolerance with accusations of indifference to oppression. This remarkably powerful volume, rich in both empirical detail and theoretical sophistication, confronts these issues head on from a range of different perspectives-legal, psychological, anthropological, historical. It will change the way many people think and become indispensable reading for scholars interested in liberalism, practitioners working within multicultural institutions, and activists involved in human rights."
-JACQUELINE BHABHA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS STUDIES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

"When a society professes commitment to equal liberties, and also to tolerance of cultural difference, the resulting paradoxes are not merely intellectual. In Engaging Cultural Differences, some two dozen distinguished scholars in law and the social sciences consider the law's confrontations with deep cultural difference in six liberal nations. Some subjects are broad (international human rights, cultural models of identity and equality), and some particular (individual claims to asylum, or to the 'cultural defense' in criminal law). Both general readers and specialists in many disciplines have much to learn from these essays-even readers who find some cultural differences more engaging than others."
-KENNETH L. KARST, DAVID G. PRICE AND DALLAS P. PRICE PROFESSOR OF LAW EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Liberal democracies are based on principles of inclusion and tolerance. But how does the principle of tolerance work in practice in countries such as Germany, France, India, South Africa, and the United States, where an increasingly wide range of cultural groups holds often contradictory beliefs about appropriate social and family life practices? As these democracies expand to include peoples of vastly different cultural backgrounds, the limits of tolerance are being tested as never before. Engaging Cultural Differences explores how liberal democracies respond socially and legally to differences in the cultural and religious practices of their minority groups.

Building on such examples, the contributors examine the role of tolerance in practical encounters between state officials and immigrants, and between members of longstanding majority groups and increasing numbers of minority groups. The volume also considers the theoretical implications of expanding the realm of tolerance. Some contributors are reluctant to broaden the scope of tolerance, while others insist that the notion of "tolerance" is itself potentially confining and demeaning and that modern nations should aspire to celebrate cultural differences.

Coming to terms with ethnic diversity and cultural differences has become a major public policy concern in contemporary liberal democracies, as they struggle to adjust to burgeoning immigrant populations. Engaging Cultural Differences provides a compelling examination of the challenges of multiculturalism and reveals a deep understanding of the challenges democracies face as they seek to accommodate their citizens' diverse beliefs and practices.

RICHARD A. SHWEDER, an anthropologist, is professor of human development at the University of Chicago.

MARTHA MINOW is professor of law at Harvard University.

HAZEL R. MARKUS is professor of psychology at Stanford University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Richard A. Shweder, Martha Minow, Hazel Rose Markus, Caroline Bledsoe, David L. Chambers, Jane Maslow Cohen, Joanna Davidson, Arthur N. Eisenberg, Karen Engle, Katherine Pratt Ewing, Heejung S. Kim, Corinne A. Kratz, Maivân Clech Lâm, Usha Menon, Victoria C. Plaut, Alison Dundes Renteln, Lloyd I. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Lawrence G. Sager, Austin Sarat, Claude M. Steele, Dorothy M. Steele, Nomi Stolzenberg, Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, and Unni Wikan.
 

A Generation of Change is an exceptional study of the nation's elderly, a population that has undergone profound changes in the years since World War II. As modern medicine extends the average life span and the baby boom generation begins to approach middle age, the number of older Americans is expected to more than double in the next century. Currently, 75 percent of U.S. health care expenditures go toward the elderly. But as national trends toward early retirement and low birthrate continue, an aging American population could face crises in meeting their financial and physical needs. According to Jacob S. Siegel in A Generation of Change, astute public planning must be informed by an understanding of the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the older population, as it is today and as it will be in the coming years.

Siegel employs census and survey data from 1950 through the mid-1980s to describe a population constantly shifting in its ethnic and gender composition, geographic distribution, marital and living arrangements, health, employment, and economic status. Surprisingly, there is tremendous disparity in the quality of life among the elderly. Although their average poverty rate is below that of the general population, there are dramatic levels of poverty among older women, who are far more likely than men to live alone or in institutions. As the elderly progress from the "young old" to the "aged old"—those over 85—sharp differences emerge as income and employment decrease and degrees of chronic illness increase. In addition, residential location influences the quality of health care and public assistance available to the elderly, an effect that may account for the marked migration of older people to Florida and Arizona.

Siegel analyzes the full range of characteristics for this heterogenous population and, through comparisons with other age groups as well as with the elderly of the previous decades, portrays the crucial influence of social and economic conditions over the life course on the quality of later life. With our elderly population growing more numerous and long lived, accurate information about them is increasingly essential. A Generation of Change will serve as a valuable resource for policymakers seeking more effective solutions in critical areas such as housing, long-term health care, and the funding of Social Security and retirement programs.

JACOB S. SIEGEL is professor of demography at Georgetown University.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

Includes many original contributions by an assembly of distinguished social scientists. They set forth the main features of a changing American society: how its organization for accomplishing major social change has evolved, and how its benefits and deficits are distributed among the various parts of the population. Theoretical developments in the social sciences and the vast impact of current events have contributed to a resurgence of interest in social change; in its causes, measurement, and possible prediction. These essays analyze what we know, and examine what we need to know in the study, prediction, and possible control of social change.

DR. ELEANOR BERNERT SHELDON and DR. WILBERT E. MOORE are both sociologists on the professional staff of the Russell Sage Foundation. They share a common background in demography and a common current interest in the measurement of large-scale structural change. Both have written extensively in various other sociological specialties, and participated in the ongoing activities of their common profession.

CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Bell, N.J. Demerath III, Beverly Duncan, Otis Dudley Duncan, Philip H. Ennis, William J. Goode, Stanley Lebergott, Ida C. Merriam, Joyce M. Mitchell, William C. Mitchell, Wilbert E. Moore, Iwao M. Moriyama, Milton Moss, A.W. Sametz, Conrad Taeuber.

"The authors' concerns resonate with current state and federal policy debates to reinstate more options for education and training. This book should encourage continuing examination of these policies and further research, development, and dissemination of policies that boost education outcomes."
-POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

"Putting Poor People to Work is the best examination so far of 'work first,' the idea that poor individuals should simply go to work as the most direct way out of poverty .... In the end, their powerful analysis reveals a disturbing duality: at the same time that many policymakers and advocates are trumpeting the value of education, public policy has decided that the poorest among us deserve not education but mere palliatives."
-W. NORTON GRUBB, David Gardner Chair in Higher Education, University of California at Berkeley

"While the Clinton administration was promoting college attendance, welfare reform 'work first' requirements were simultaneously closing off college opportunities for the poor .... This book provides an important contribution to our understanding of this policy and its extensive implications for the poor, for community colleges, and for ideas about who gets educational opportunity in the United States."
-JAMES E. ROSENBAUM, professor of sociology, education, and social policy, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University

"Putting Poor People to Work is an important book that describes in devastating detail how over the past decade, and almost without notice, poor women lost the fragile foothold they had gained onto the first rungs of the education ladder-access to college-that other Americans climb to economic security."
-JULIE STRAWN, senior policy analyst, Center for Law and Social Policy

Today, a college education is increasingly viewed as the gateway to the American Dream—a necessary prerequisite for social mobility. Yet recent policy reforms in the United States effectively steer former welfare recipients away from an education that could further their career prospects, forcing them directly into the workforce where they often find only low-paying jobs with little opportunity for growth. In Putting Poor People to Work, Kathleen Shaw, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Christopher Mazzeo, and Jerry A. Jacobs explore this troubling disconnect between the principles of “work-first” and “college for all.”

Using comprehensive interviews with government officials and sophisticated data from six states over a four year period, Putting Poor People to Work shows how recent changes in public policy have reduced the quantity and quality of education and training available to adults with low incomes. The authors analyze how two policies encouraging work—the federal welfare reform law of 1996 and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998—have made moving people off of public assistance as soon as possible, with little regard to their long-term career prospects, a government priority. Putting Poor People to Work shows that since the passage of these “work-first” laws, not only are fewer low-income individuals pursuing postsecondary education, but when they do, they are increasingly directed towards the most ineffective, short-term forms of training, rather than higher-quality college-level education. Moreover, the schools most able and ready to serve poor adults—the community colleges—are deterred by these policies from doing so.

Having a competitive, agile workforce that can compete with any in the world is a national priority. In a global economy where skills are paramount, that goal requires broad popular access to education and training. Putting Poor People to Work shows how current U.S. policy discourages poor Americans from seeking out a college education, stranding them in jobs with little potential for growth. This important new book makes a powerful argument for a shift in national priorities that would encourage the poor to embrace both work and education, rather than having to choose between the two.

KATHLEEN M. SHAW is chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and associate professor of urban education at Temple University.

SARA GOLDRICK-RAB is assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and faculty affiliate of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education.

CHRISTOPHER MAZZEO is a New York City–based independent consultant.

JERRY A. JACOBS is Merriam Term Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and editor of the American Sociological Review.

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy

"The collection contains an incredibly rich amount of information, historical background, statistics, and ideas. It provides a significant contribution to our understanding of social reproduction, economic inequality, poverty, and the institutional mechanisms that shape wealth inequality. This book should be of interest to a broad audience."
- CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

"Assets for the Poor makes an important contribution to the debate on how the wealth-creating opportunities available to upper- and middle- class Americans can be extended to low income families. Many critical issues of asset development are discussed in this important book, which will be an essential resource for anyone concerned about the twin problems of poverty and inequality in American society today."
-JAMES MIDGLEY, University of California, Berkeley

"For those already convinced of the importance of assets for poor families, this comprehensive compendium will add breadth and depth. For those wavering as to whether asset-based policies are a useful anti- poverty tool, this book is likely to win you over."
- JARED BERNSTEIN, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.

'Assets for the Poor is the scholarly treatise on America's 'third revolution,' the movement to democratize capitalism. While the first struggle overcame foreign tyranny and the second defeated slavery to usher in an extended era of civil rights, the coming revolution will be over economic justice... an effort to secure for all families a share in the fruits of our democracy."
-J. LARRY BROWN, Brandeis University

Over the past three decades, average household wealth in the United States has declined among all but the richest families, with a near 80 percent drop among the nation's poorest families. Although the national debate about inequality has focused on income, it is wealth—the private assets amassed and passed on within families—that provides the extra economic cushion needed to move beyond mere day-to-day survival. Assets for the Poor is the first full-scale investigation into the importance of family wealth and the need for policies to encourage asset-building among the poor.

Assets for the Poor shows how institutional mechanisms designed to encourage acquisition of capital and property favor middle-class and high-income families. For example, the aggregate value of home mortgage tax deductions far outweighs the dollar amount of the subsidies provided by Section 8 rental vouchers and public housing. Banking definitions of creditworthiness largely exclude minorities, and welfare rules have made it nearly impossible for single mothers to accumulate savings, let alone stocks or real estate. Due to persistent residential segregation, even those minority families who do own homes are often denied equal access to better schools and public services.

The research in this volume shows that the poor do make use of the assets they have. Cash gifts—although small in size—are frequent within families and often lead to such positive results as homebuying and debt reduction, while tangible assets such as tools and cars help increase employment prospects. Assets for the Poor examines policies such as Individual Development Account tax subsidies to reward financial savings among the poor, and more liberal credit rules to make borrowing easier and less costly. The contributors also offer thoughtful advice for bringing the poor into mainstream savings institutions and warn against developing asset building policies at the expense of existing safety net programs.

Asset-building for low-income families is a powerful idea that offers hope to families searching for a way out of poverty. Assets for the Poor challenges current thinking regarding poverty reduction policies and proposes a major shift in the way we think about families and how they make a better life.

THOMAS M. SHAPIRO is professor of sociology at Northeastern University.

EDWARD N. WOLFF is professor of economics at New York University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Richard V. Burkhauser, John Sibley Butler, Stacie Carney, Dalton Conley, Nancy A. Denton, Kathryn Edin, William G. Gale, Robert Haveman, Lelvin L. Oliver, Laurence S. Seidman, Thomas M. Shapiro, Michael Sherraden, Seymour Spilerman, Mark J. Stern, Robert Weathers, Mark O. Wilhelm, Edward N. Wolff

A Volume in the Ford Foundation Series on Asset Building

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"Excellent for anyone studying social change and social movements, as well as for business leaders."
-CHOICE

"Beyond the Boycott draws on careful analysis of cases ranging across time and space from the operation of the Sullivan Principles in South Africa in the apartheid era to monitoring apparel sub-contractors in contemporary Guatemala to generate a provocative and original proposition on the effectiveness of transnational labor rights campaigns. Gay Seidman's well-argued thesis that transnational activists should focus less on corporations and 'workers' rights as human rights' and more on states and 'workers' rights as citizenship rights' is a fresh and stimulating addition to debates on transnational activism that is sure to have a lasting impact."
-PETER B. EVANS, University of California, Berkeley

"In this imaginative study, Gay Seidman explores the implications of the pivotal shift among labor advocates in the anti-globalizaiton movement from a traditional 'labor rights' discourse targeting the national state to a focus on human rights at the global level that relies on 'stateless regulation.' The three case studies reveal the potential of this new form of transnational labor activism, but also expose its limitations-most importantly the ways in which it constructs workers as victims rather than as agents of social transformation. No one else has examined the anti-sweatshop movement and corporate 'codes of conduct' with such a subtle comparative touch. Beyond the Boycott is a must read for anyone concerned about labor and globalization, for scholars and advocates alike."
-RUTH MILKMAN, UCLA

"In Beyond the Boycott, the eminent labor sociologist Gay Seidman provides an indispensable analysis of one of the most urgent questions of our time: How can labor rights be enforced in a global system now devoted to the rights of capital and commerce? By critically examining three major attempts to use the tools of 'stateless regulation,' Seidman makes a powerful argument that transnational activists should refocus their campaigns on restoring the promise of state institutions and democratic citizenship. This gem of a book will be required reading for anyone concerned about social justice in an era of globalization."
-MARK BARENBERG, Columbia University

As the world economy becomes increasingly integrated, companies can shift production to wherever wages are lowest and unions weakest. How can workers defend their rights in an era of mobile capital? With national governments forced to compete for foreign investment by rolling back legal protections for workers, fair trade advocates are enlisting consumers to put market pressure on companies to treat their workers fairly. In Beyond the Boycott, sociologist Gay Seidman asks whether this non-governmental approach can reverse the “race to the bottom” in global labor standards.

Beyond the Boycott examines three campaigns in which activists successfully used the threat of a consumer boycott to pressure companies to accept voluntary codes of conduct and independent monitoring of  work sites. The voluntary Sullivan Code required American corporations operating in apartheid-era South Africa to improve treatment of their workers;  in India, the Rugmark inspection team provides ‘social labels’ for  handknotted carpets made without child labor; and in Guatemala,  COVERCO monitors conditions in factories producing clothing under contract for major American brands. Seidman compares these cases to explore the ingredients of successful campaigns, as well as the inherent limitations facing voluntary monitoring schemes. Despite activists’ emphasis on educating individual consumers to support ethical companies, Seidman finds that, in practice, they have been most successful when they mobilized institutions—such as universities, churches, and shareholder organizations. Moreover, although activists tend to dismiss states’ capabilities, all three cases involved governmental threats of trade sanctions against companies and countries with poor labor records. Finally, Seidman  points to an intractable difficulty of independent workplace monitoring: since consumers rarely distinguish between monitoring schemes and labels, companies can hand pick monitoring organizations, selecting those with the lowest standards for working conditions and the least aggressive inspections. Transnational consumer movements can increase the bargaining power of the global workforce, Seidman argues, but they cannot replace national governments or local campaigns to expand the meaning of citizenship.

As trade and capital move across borders in growing volume and with greater speed, civil society and human rights movements are also becoming more global. Highly original and thought-provoking, Beyond the Boycott vividly depicts the contemporary movement to humanize globalization—its present and its possible future.

GAY W. SEIDMAN is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"This volume is the first to examine how public policy aimed at education, income support, welfare, housing, civil rights, and employment may affect health. Since the existing strategy of devoting an increasing share of resources to medical care is at the point of diminishing returns and cannot be sustained in the long run, the approach promoted by this seminal collection deserves and is certain to receive growing attention."
-CHOICE

"In the next fifteen years, baby boomers will enter the elderly population and the number of people over sixty-five in the United States will have doubled, a crisis that will dramatically overwhelm our medical care system. Making Americans Healthier offers crucially important ideas about how we must deal with this challenge."
-S. LEONARD SYME, emeritus professor of epidemiology and community health, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

"This is an absolute must-read book for anyone interested in how government policies can improve population health and reduce health disparities. Throughout most of the twentieth century, developed nations focused almost exclusively on the development of health care services, drugs and technology to cure acute illnesses and chronic disease. In contrast, the twenty-first century promises a much more deliberative effort to understand, endorse, and disseminate social and economic policy to promote health and prevent the onset of illness. Making Americans Healthier provides the keys for opening that prevention door by providing an up-to-date critique and thorough examination of how non-health policies targeted on social and economic problems have impacted population health."
-COLLEEN M. GROGAN, associate professor, School of Social Service Administration, and academic dean, Graduate Program in Health Administration and Policy, University of Chicago

The United States spends billions of dollars annually on social and economic policies aimed at improving the lives of its citizens, but the health consequences associated with these policies are rarely considered. In Making Americans Healthier, a group of multidisciplinary experts shows how social and economic policies seemingly unrelated to medical well-being have dramatic consequences for the health of the American people.

Most previous research concerning problems with health and healthcare in the United States has focused narrowly on issues of medical care and insurance coverage, but Making Americans Healthier demonstrates the important health consequences that policymakers overlook in traditional cost-benefit evaluations of social policy. The contributors examine six critical policy areas: civil rights, education, income support, employment, welfare, and neighborhood and housing. Among the important findings in this book, David Cutler and Adriana Lleras-Muney document the robust relationship between educational attainment and health, and estimate that the health benefits of education may exceed even the well-documented financial returns of education. Pamela Herd, James House, and Robert Schoeni discover notable health benefits associated with the Supplemental Security Income Program, which provides financial support for elderly and disabled Americans. George Kaplan, Nalini Ranjit, and Sarah Burgard document a large and unanticipated improvement in the health of African-American women following the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Making Americans Healthier presents ground-breaking evidence that the health impact of many social policies is substantial. The important findings in this book pave the way for promising new avenues for intervention and convincingly demonstrate that ultimately social and economic policy is health policy.
 

ROBERT F. SCHOENI is professor of public policy and economics, the University of Michigan.

JAMES S. HOUSE is Angus Campbell Collegiate Professor of Sociology and Survey Research, the University of Michigan.

GEORGE A. KAPLAN is the Thomas Francis Collegiate Professor of Public Health, the University of Michigan.

HAROLD POLLACK is associate professor of social service administration, University of Chicago.

CONTRIBUTORS: Marianne P. Bitler, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Sarah A. Burgard, Janet Currie, David M. Cutler, Rebecca C. Fauth, Irv Garfinkel. Ben B. Hansen, Pamela Herd, Hilary Hoynes, Daniel Keating, Jean Knab, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Sara McLanahan, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, Enrico Moretti, Theresa L. Osypuk, Richard H. Price,  Nalini Ranjit, Ana V. Diez Roux, Christopher J. Ruhm, Sharon Z. Simonton.

A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy