"Professors Leisering and Leibfried explore the relationship between welfare policies and individual life trajectories by way of a time-based (dynamic) analysis of poverty, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, and suggest the need for a radical rethinking of conventional theoretical and policy approaches. The core of this study is the empirical analysis of the life course of claimants of 'Social Assistance' in West and East Germany, although the conclusions are put into a wider context of socio-economic, socio-political and historical analysis and comparative observations are made with other countries, notably the USA."--Jacket. "Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States will be of interest to upper-level students, researchers and policy-makers in a wide range of social science disciplines, including sociology, economics, social policy, psychology and European studies."--Jacket.