Work and the Social Safety Net Format: Hardback

Work and the Social Safety Net: Labor Activation in Europe and the United States describes how in the 1990s and early 2000s many European countries adopted policy reforms aimed at activating those recipients apparently able to work. These policy reforms were put to the test during the Great Recession and its aftermath. This volume reviews the experiences from both Europe and the United States during this period. Work and the Social Safety Net identifies policies for activating recipients of safety-net programs while still preserving a strong social safety net--as a guide during the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and future downturns.

Douglas J. Besharov is a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, where he teaches courses on poverty, welfare, children and families, policy analysis and logic models, program evaluation, and performance management. He is a former president of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management, where he also directed its program on international policy exchanges, and co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford University Press International Policy Exchange series.

Douglas M. Call is the deputy director of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy's Center for International Policy Exchanges and Welfare Reform Academy. He is also a lecturer at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, teaching graduate courses on program evaluation and poverty measurement and alleviation, and supervising student projects in the capstone course.