More than a decade after presidential candidate Bill Clinton floated the idea of ending "welfare as we know it," the changes to the system have become so accepted and entrenched that it is difficult to remember the heated controversy surrounding the issue of reform. Jason DeParle, a social policy reporter for The New York Times, forcefully brings the subject to life in American Dream, a moving and informed examination of the challenges, complexities, successes, and failures involved in fixing our nation's ailing welfare system. Tracing the lives of three women and their children as legislative changes are pushed through Washington and the state of Wisconsin, DeParle puts an extraordinarily human face on a subject that is too often prone to ideological oversimplification. As DeParle adeptly shows, their story "of adversity variously overcome, compounded, or merely endured ... embodies the story of welfare writ large."

The three compelling women at the heart of DeParle's narrative are vastly different temperamentally, yet they share the abstract qualities of strength and endurance, as well as extended family ties. DeParle paints their portraits with respect and sensitivity, and he provides a marvelous family history that reveals how "the story of welfare" is painfully "tangled in the story of race." Our glimpse at these difficult lives and the forces that profoundly shape them inspire an equal measure of hope and disappointment, and a large measure of outrage. As these remarkably resilient women struggle to raise their families, corruption is exposed in the very offices charged with implementing the newly adopted reforms. DeParle accepts that removing nine million women and children from the welfare rolls represents enormous progress. However, he simultaneously recognizes that we are dismally failing to confront a consequence of welfare reform: a new class of working poor. --Silvana Tropea

From Publishers Weekly
While campaigning for president in 1992, Bill Clinton vowed to "end welfare as we know it"; four years later, the much publicized slogan evolved into a law that sent nine million women and children off the rolls. New York Times reporter DeParle takes an eye-opening look at the controversial law through the lives of three black women affected by it, all part of the same extended family, and at the shapers of the policy. He moves back and forth between the women's tough Milwaukee neighborhoods and the strategy sessions and speeches of Clinton, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and others. But the best parts of the book are its slices of life: DeParle accompanies the women on trips to the dentist, on visits to loved ones in jail, to job-training workshops and on travels to Mississippi. He offers few solutions for breaking the cycle of poverty and dependency in America, but DeParle's large-scale conclusion is that moving poor women into the workforce contributed to declines in crime, teen pregnancy and crack use. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Jason DeParle's American Dream is the story of what happened to three real families when we "reformed" welfare. In 1996, Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, a bill that eliminated Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), a federal program that dated back to the New Deal. AFDC provided small cash grants to 5 million impoverished families, most of them headed by single mothers. It also functioned as the gateway to food stamps and Medicaid for these families. Together these subsidies provided a penurious livelihood for some of the nation's poorest women and children. The program that replaced AFDC in 1996 was called Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), the triumph of a 30-year campaign by right-wing think tanks and conservative Republicans who charged that AFDC discouraged marriage, encouraged out-of-wedlock births and bred a culture that devalued work and encouraged criminality and sloth. The campaign was relentless, from President Ronald Reagan's repeated invocation of "welfare queens" to Sen. Phil Gramm's bizarre claims that welfare was costing hundreds of billions of dollars. On the other side, the opposition was feeble. No one really liked welfare. Recipients resented the low grants, the hassles and the humiliating treatment they received at the welfare office. And liberals generally were ambivalent about a program that provided a bare subsistence but did little to improve the quality of life in low-income communities. They were not against reform, but they envisioned one that would support the efforts of poor mothers to raise their children. The real-world reform that was on the table threatened to simply make cash assistance hard to get, and liberals sent up cries of alarm as the passage of the bill became imminent.DeParle, a New York Times reporter assigned to the welfare and poverty beat during this period, became an important figure in these wars. His news articles seemed to represent a voice of reasoned objectivity. To most Americans, it seemed that welfare reform succeeded, simply because the rolls fell dramatically; that's what the news reported. In fact, the rolls fell because women who violated one or another of the numerous new rules lost their benefits. Or they were terminated because they came up against new time limits or Kafkaesque practices that made it extremely difficult for them to apply in the first place. But what happened to these women and their families? To his credit, DeParle did not tire of his subject when the political wars died down; instead, he undertook a detailed, even intimate, study of the effects of welfare reform on three families in Milwaukee, in a way the epicenter of reform. Tommy Thompson, then the state's Republican governor, was determined to make welfare reform his motto as he pursued higher political office. He is now secretary of Health and Human Services.The central characters in American Dream are Jewell, Angie and Opal, three mothers who lost welfare, presumably in return for a better life. DeParle befriended them and stayed very close to them, their men and their children for almost a decade, the decade during which the welfare reforms took place.DeParle is a fastidious reporter, and the story he tells contradicts the central premises of welfare reform. These women were not mired in sloth: They worked, even when they were on welfare. And they weren't from multi-generational welfare families; their mothers worked as well, and so did the mothers of their male partners. Losing welfare made Angie and Jewell work harder, with unsettling consequences for their children, who began to fail in school. Losing welfare didn't make the drug-addicted Opal go clean but instead led to her unraveling, as she desperately stole from friends, lost her children and then dropped out of sight. The staff of the new work-first system was oblivious to all this and at the top was astonishingly corrupt besides, taking advantage of the privatization of services to benefit corporations with which they became associated.In the end, this is a fascinating account that makes a deeply incoherent argument. DeParle doesn't come to terms with his own reporting, either at the time of welfare reform or now. At the height of the welfare-reform frenzy, he wrote a celebratory story about Opal's personal success in the New York Times Magazine. Now he knows better. But he does not use what he knows to reflect on his earlier opinions. "The notion that work is good for the soul," DeParle writes, "runs deep in American life." It seems to run deep in his psyche, too. But his own work shows that welfare didn't cause the pathologies attributed to it. If he, or we, think work is good for the soul, why not make it easier for women to work by providing childcare, and health care, and decent wages? And by allowing them to keep the welfare lifeline as well? Nor has getting rid of the welfare "albatross" made us more generous to the poor. Poverty is rising, and support systems continue to shrink. But since the curtain fell on the theater of welfare reform, Americans have been all too ready to forget about it.Reviewed by Frances Fox Piven Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
Bill Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it" and launched a reform program that cast millions of women and children into tentative independence. New York Times reporter DeParle provides an absorbing look at three women, Angie, Jewell, and Opal, as they move from Chicago to Milwaukee, lured by higher benefits and lower living costs, only to confront the upheaval of the welfare system. DeParle doesn't stop at the usual exploration of welfare and urban policy. He traces the common heritage of the three women back six generations and connects the social conditions of urban poverty to southern sharecropping of the 1930s, when circumstances mirrored those of the welfare underclass even before there was a welfare program. DeParle also examines the political and commercial interests at stake. But he is most compelling in his portrayal of the personal struggle of these women and their children to carve out lives for themselves in the midst of uncertainty and in the face of tremendous obstacles. An important book for the public and for policymakers. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

San Jose Mercury News
Exhaustively researched and eloquently reported…a significant book––clear– headed, deeply sensitive and richly informative.

New York Times Book Review
...courageous and deeply disturbing...

Los Angeles Times
People for and against welfare reform "often read evidence selectively. DeParle's new book, American Dream, offers a powerful, bracing antidote.

Book Description
Bill Clinton vowed to "end welfare as we know it" in his first run for president in 1992. Four years later, Congress translated a catchy slogan into a law that sent nine million women and children streaming from the rolls. Did it work? In his definitive book on this unprecedented upheaval in social policy, New York Times reporter and two- time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jason DeParle follows three women in one extended family to a set of surprising answers. Cutting between the corridors of Washington and the meanest streets of Milwaukee, DeParle tracks the story from the White House to the local crack house. After twelve years on welfare, Angie, a truculent mother of three, finds a job and a 401(k)— and a boyfriend who tries to shoot her. Her cousin Jewell, glamorous even in sweatpants, adores the children she struggles to support. Opal combines an antic wit with an appetite for cocaine while the welfare agency that is supposed to help her squanders its millions. Drawing on more than a decade of reporting, DeParle traces their story back six generations to a common ancestor—a Mississippi slave—and adds politicians, case workers, reformers, and rogues to an epic exploration of America’s struggle with poverty and dependency. Probing the law’s unlikely successes—and haunting failures—American Dream provides a startling expose´ in this election year.

From the Inside Flap
"Jason DeParle's American Dream is a singular achievement. He interweaves a fascinating discussion of the politics of the welfare reform movement with a poignant portrayal of the lives of three women in one extended family who move on and off the welfare rolls in a struggle to survive. This is must reading for anyone concerned about the limitations of American social policy in addressing the problems of the urban poor." William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University "Jason DeParle's American Dream vividly reveals how public policy affecting the poor is conceived, marketed, enacted, and implemented. He shows what ‘welfare reform’ does for those on high and what it does to those below who most directly feel the consequences of policies over which they have little influence. DeParle's book delivers its haunting news with a jolt. It informs us about the continuation of a dire national tragedy with a skillfulness that demands admiration." Randall Kennedy Professor, Harvard Law School " In American Dream, Jason DeParle gives us a first-ever, penetrating look into the evolving consequences of the Clinton administration’s so–called "welfare reform" of 1996. DeParle’s exceptional reporting takes us back to the intergenerational source of so much black poverty -- stretching back six generations in the Caples family and outlining how three members of this extended African American family, Angie, Opal and Jewell, have coped with the crises of urban poverty and demands of the welfare bureaucracy. We learn intimate details of the Caples’ struggles on the periphery of American life from slavery and subsequent sharecropping serfdom in the Mississippi Delta to the slums of Milwaukee in the early 1990s. The Epilogue ends in 2004 with Angie and Jewell, no longer on welfare and working, holding tightly onto one thin thread by which they may pull themselves into the American dream, while their "sister" Opal seems to have fallen far out of reach. American Dream is an extraordinary effort by an extraordinary journalist." Leon Dash Author of When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis in Adolescent Childbearing and Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America. "No other journalist matches Jason DeParle’s skill in showing the effects of social policy on real people. This is a book that will break your heart and open your mind. In the vividness of its characters and the sweep of its ambition, American Dream is the Les Miserables of our day. It follows three women on their journey into and out of the welfare system, but it does much more. It carries us through four generations of their ancestors’ history, to explain the origins of their poverty. And it brings us five years of political high drama, to explain the law that comes crashing into their lives. This book teems with humor, surprise, paradox, and redemption." Helen Prejean Author of Dead Man Walking "With equal measure of compassion and dispassion, Jason DeParle confronts us inescapably with the reality of poverty in America. You cannot read this book and remain indifferent to those who are being left behind. This is one of the great works on social policy of this generation." Daniel Schorr Senior News Analyst National Public Radio "In this beautifully written, heartfelt book, Jason DeParle has pulled off a stunning feat of journalistic storytelling. Equally at home in the West Wing as he is on the inner-city streets of Milwaukee, DeParle chronicles the story behind the most important piece of social policy to come along in decades, and its impact on real lives. With a novelist’s eye for irony and detail, he is unflinching in his reporting. What he finds will surprise you. It did me. American Dream is a must read for anyone concerned about the fate of our poor." Alex Kotlowitz Author of There Are No Children Here

About the Author
Jason DeParle, a reporter for The New York Times, has also written for The New Republic, the Washington Monthly, and The New Orleans Times-Picayune. A former Henry Luce Scholar, DeParle was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 and 1998 for his reporting on the welfare system.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Bill Clinton vowed to "end welfare as we know it" in his first run for president in 1992. Four years later, Congress translated a catchy slogan into a law that sent 9 million women and children streaming from the rolls. Did it work? In his book on the historic upheaval in the American social contract, New York Times reporter and two-time Pulitzer finalist Jason DeParle follows three women in one extended family to a set of surprising answers." "Cutting between Washington and the streets of Milwaukee, DeParle follows the story from the White House to the local crack house." DeParle travels between the politicians who wrote the bill and the poor people who lived it. He spent seven years tracking an unforgettable set of characters caught in its wake. Angela Jobe, Jewell Reed, and Opal Caples - cousins, yet closer than sisters - arrive in Milwaukee just as the city becomes the epicenter of the antiwelfare crusade. Their responses vex the expectations of the political left and right. After a dozen years on welfare, Angie thrives as a worker, with a car, two jobs, and a 401(k) - yet her children struggle in school, and her boyfriend tries to shoot her. Jewell, glamorous even in sweatpants, isn't focused on work; what she cares about are her kids and the imprisoned man she wants to marry. Opal combines an antic wit with an appetite for cocaine, while the for-profit welfare agency handling her case squanders the taxpayers' millions. Tracing the story back six generations to a common ancestor - a Mississippi slave - DeParle adds intellectuals, caseworkers, reformers, and rogues to a tale of adversity variously overcome, compounded, or merely endured.

FROM THE CRITICS

Anthony Walton - The New York Times

Resolving to clean his ''mental slate,'' DeParle set out to explore the effects of the landmark law. The courageous and deeply disturbing result, American Dream, confounds the clich￯﾿ﾽs of the left as well as the right about race, poverty, class and opportunity in the early 21st century … Through his scrupulous attention, DeParle challenges the nation to contemplate the dreams, or lack thereof, within the American dream.

The New Yorker

In the years after 1996, when President Clinton signed welfare-reform legislation, nine million women and children left the country’s welfare rolls. Though the exodus was applauded in Washington, the story of exactly how these families were faring remained, in DeParle’s words, a “national mystery.” DeParle spent these years in Milwaukee, welfare reform’s unofficial capital, studying the lives of three former welfare mothers: Jewell, Opal, and Angie. The narrative pans across generations of poverty—the women’s grandparents sharecropped cotton—while, in the present, results vary. Opal tumbles into crack addiction, but the others struggle ahead, ultimately earning nine and ten dollars an hour as nursing assistants; Angie even joins a 401(k) plan. They are welfare-reform “successes,” but their lives remain precarious. When there isn’t enough money, lights are turned off and children go hungry. “Just treading water,” Angie says, surveying her progress. “Just making it, that’s all.”

Publishers Weekly

While campaigning for president in 1992, Bill Clinton vowed to "end welfare as we know it"; four years later, the much publicized slogan evolved into a law that sent nine million women and children off the rolls. New York Times reporter DeParle takes an eye-opening look at the controversial law through the lives of three black women affected by it, all part of the same extended family, and at the shapers of the policy. He moves back and forth between the women's tough Milwaukee neighborhoods and the strategy sessions and speeches of Clinton, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and others. But the best parts of the book are its slices of life: DeParle accompanies the women on trips to the dentist, on visits to loved ones in jail, to job-training workshops and on travels to Mississippi. He offers few solutions for breaking the cycle of poverty and dependency in America, but DeParle's large-scale conclusion is that moving poor women into the workforce contributed to declines in crime, teen pregnancy and crack use. (Sept. 9) Forecast: This long-focus book will appeal to readers of David Shipler's bestselling The Working Poor and the highly praised Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and may receive a small boost from renewed Clinton mania. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal