 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Charles Murray |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Welfare state |
| Published | November 1984 (hardback) January 1994 (paperback) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 346[1] |
| ISBN | 978-0465065882 |
Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 is a 1984 book about the effectiveness ofwelfare state policies in the United States between 1950 and 1980 by the political scientistCharles Murray.[2] Both its policy proposals and its methodology have attracted significantcontroversy.[3][4][5][6]
Murray wrote the book while a fellow at theManhattan Institute, then under the aegis ofIrving Kristol. The Manhattan Institute funded his work on the book and also promoted it.[7] Approximately $25,000 of the Manhattan Institute grant money for the book was provided by theJohn M. Olin Foundation.[8]Joan Kennedy Taylor of the Manhattan Institute is credited with having brought the book into publication.[9]
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Murray's main thesis is that social welfare programs, as they have historically been implemented in the United States, tend to increase poverty rather than decrease it because they create incentives rewarding short-sighted behavior not conducive to escaping poverty in the long term.[3][4][10][11]
Christopher Jencks wrote a detailed review in the May 9, 1985, issue ofThe New York Review of Books in which he describes the book as a work of "Social Darwinism" which owes its popularity not to its scientific rigor but rather to its utility in providing a veneer of "moral legitimacy for budget cuts that many politicians want to make in order to reduce the federal deficit."[6] Murray responded to Jencks's critique, to which Jencks responded in turn.[12]
TheInstitute for Research on Poverty at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison published a special report with the views of poverty researchers affiliated with the Institute on Murray's claims. A 12-page summary was also published in theirFocus magazine, in which the researchers "reject [Losing Ground's] broad condemnations of theGreat Society", but they agreed that a new approach was needed for the 1980s to meet the goal of reducing poverty and crime.[13]
In 1985, a few months after the book's release, anop-ed inThe New York Times called it a budget-cutter's bible, also saying the book's "proposition may be as deeply flawed as it is startling, unlikely to survive scrutiny."[10]
In a December 1993 interview withNBC News, then U.S. PresidentBill Clinton wrote of Murray andLosing Ground: "He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. ... There's no question that it would work. But the question is ... Is it morally right?"[14]
In 2006, conservative punditMichael Barone wrote that the book "undermined the case that welfare was a moral obligation" and that it inspired thewelfare reform measures of the 1990s.[15]
In his 2009 bookPrisons of Poverty, sociologistLoïc Wacquant criticized the book for misinterpreting data in a way that purported to demonstrate that rising poverty levels after the 1960s were caused by the emergence of the social welfare state when according to Wacquant the data showed no such thing.[5]
Murray demonstrated that ... income transfer programs ... made them worse off.
