During the prosperous 1980s, increased unemployment and widening income inequality throughout the Western world raised the paradoxical specter of a new and acute form of poverty in advanced economies. Rapid technological advances, industrial globalization, loss of low-wage jobs, increased numbers of single-mother families, and new patterns of immigration all placed tremendous strain on social welfare programs designed for a more stable, homogeneous era. The essays in Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of Social Policy provide a comprehensive account of this economic and social turbulence and analyze the capacities of Western welfare systems to respond effectively to the growing crisis.

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