The revised and updated seventh edition of this standard work for students, scholars, and policymakers takes into account the broad changes in federal assistance programs since 1991. It reviews the steady erosion of entitlement programs to families with dependent children, single-parent households, youth, veterans, and the elderly. Most particularly, it looks at the impact of the 1996 welfare reform that dramatically reconfigured the aid landscape.

Following an examination of the characteristics of the American poor, the book analyzes four strategies of assistance programs: income maintenance programs directed mainly at the poor who are outside the work force, programs supplying goods and services, programs designed to prevent the spread of poverty to new generations, and programs to aid the working poor. The concluding chapter explores feasible approaches to the alleviation of poverty.