Preface -- Introduction -- golden age of laissez-faire? : the 50s -- 1950s : limited government, limited affluence -- Wars on poverty : the 60s -- Planning the war on poverty : fixing the poor or fixing the economy? -- Evaluating the war on poverty : the conservatism of liberalism -- Moynihan, the dissenters, and the racialization of poverty : a liberal turning point that did not turn -- Statistics and theory of unemployment and poverty : lessons from the 60s and the postwar era -- Toward a war on the poor : the 70s and 80s -- politics of poverty and welfare in the 70s : from Nixon to Carter -- Too much work ethic : one reason poverty rates stopped falling in the 70s, and the stories that were told about it -- Cutting poverty or cutting welfare : conservatives attack liberalism -- Reagan, Reaganomics, and the American poor, 1980-1992 -- poor you will always have with you - if you don't do the right thing : 1993-present -- Staying poor in the Clinton boom : welfare reform, the nearby labor force, and the limits of the work ethic -- Bush and beyond : on solving and not solving poverty --

Appendix 1 : Unemployment, poverty, earnings, and household structure -- Appendix 2 : Groups often left out of antipoverty discussions in the 60s and today -- Notes -- Bibliographical essay -- Index.