In the 1950s, a rumor that people were moving to Newburgh, NY to live off welfare riled up the city. When city leaders essentially declare war on welfare — and the people who get it — things tumble out of control.
Plus, how national suspicions grew about people getting welfare right as more black people started gaining more access to welfare benefits.
Host Krissy Clark and producer Peter Balonon-Rosen go back in history to tell a surprising origin story of part of our welfare system — and take a magnifying glass to how our country determines who deserves help and who doesn’t.
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The $80 Million Acre (from “How We Survive”)
Chapter 6: The Welfare to Temp Work Pipeline
Chapter 5: Profits and Perverse Incentives
Chapter 4: The Battle of Newburgh
Chapter 2: The compliance machine
Chapter 1: The dream
Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex
25 years after welfare reform, let’s revisit “the magic bureaucrat”
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Inside baseball
Big Boss, Little Boss
To catch a chicken
The liquid workforce
“To suffer or permit to work”
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‘The Uncertain Hour’ is back!
Answering your “History of Now” questions
Without a home in a pandemic
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