"Welfare Hot Buttons provides a comparative assessment of contemporary social policy change in three Western countries: Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. In this challenging work, Sylvia Bashevkin examines the effect of the social policies of three Third Way political leaders - Bill Clinton, Jean Chretien, and Tony Blair - on the fate of single mothers on social assistance.

She argues that despite seemingly progressive campaign rhetoric, the social policies implemented under each of these leaders were in many respects more punitive and restrictive than those of their neo-conservative predecessors in the 1980s. During this latter period social assistance policy moved toward selective targeting of work-tested and means-tested benefits to 'deserving' persons.

Designed as tax or fiscal measures, these benefits helped to establish an individualized and marketized system of support that was directed toward rewarding 'working families.' In effect, single mothers in all three countries were now required to enter the labour force while their children were still young, and the social citizenship of childless people and of adults who did not or could not work for pay was severely compromised."--BOOK JACKET.