Sar A. Levitan

Clifford M. Johnson

This book examines the forces which are changing work in the 1980s and offers a concise analysis of the challenges for social policy which lie ahead. The first of nine chapters looks at changes affecting Americans' concept of work, including expectations, commitment to work, satisfaction, and work reform. Discussion in chapter 2 focuses on development of historical views toward work. Chapter 3 looks at these topics affecting the survival and strengthening of the work ethic: women in the labor force, men's earlier retirement, black unemployment, work motivation amidst poverty and unemployment, and expansion of leisure and nonwork time. Chapter 4 reviews job satisfaction surveys and examines the weaknesses of evidence of discontent. Changes in the nature of work are discussed in chapter 5, including shifts toward service and white-collar employment, technological innovation, robotics, microprocessors, and automation. Chapter 6 describes the worker of tomorrow, while chapter 7 considers reform from a historical perspective. Obstacles to long-term and widespread change (job redesign and participative management) are examined in chapter 8. Chapter 9 concludes the book with a look at the future of work that takes into consideration negative and positive aspects. (YLB)

Second Thoughts on Work

The Federal Social Dollar in Its Own Back Yard

Garth L. Mangum

Stephen L. Mangum

Andrew M. Sum

Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies Northeastern University Andrew M Sum

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty," launching a variety of new antipoverty programs and enhancing existing ones. This war is still being fought. But with what success? And at what cost? Incorporating new data from the 2000 census, the eighth edition of Programs in Aid of the Poor provides an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of current federal programs aimed at alleviating poverty in the United States. The authors focus on programs that offer cash support, provide goods and services to poor people, address the well-being of children and youth, prepare young people to earn above-poverty incomes, and offer adults a second chance to earn their way out of poverty. They also discuss the definition of poverty, identify who the poor are, and generalize the causes of poverty. "To an extent," the authors find, "we have prosecuted our war against poverty the way Senator George Aiken of Vermont advised that we do in Vietnam: 'Declare victory and go home.' Yet the war against poverty has not been abandoned. Skirmishes continue, with widely fluctuating commitment." Co-authors Garth and Stephen Mangum and Andrew Sum have also prepared a companion volume, The Persistence of Poverty in the United States, analyzing the underlying causes of poverty and its persistence in America.

Programs in Aid of the Poor

Robert Taggart

In this balances reappraisal of the social programs of the last decade, the authors find much that it positive. They respond to the popular arguments that question the results of government intervention and the need to correct social and economic ills.

The Promise of Greatness

For more than thirty years, students, scholars, and policymakers have relied on successive editions of Sar A. Levitan's Programs in Aid of the Poor. Now, in conjunction with the eighth edition of that classic work, coauthors Garth Mangum, Stephen Mangum, and Andrew Sum offer a brief but comprehensive overview of the facts of poverty in the United States, its underlying causes, and the reasons for its persistence in the richest nation in the world. Providing a wealth of data and cogent analysis, this book can be used along with Programs for additional background, or can stand on its own. "This volume demonstrates more starkly than its parent the persistence of poverty in this nation. Though some individuals and families manage to escape it, the phenomenon diminishes not at all—or at least very little . . . Having been sobered by this thought, the student may ponder what more might conceivably be done to reduce the incidence of that endemic economic and social disease."—from the Preface

Sar A. Levitan

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