Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race

Chicago Studies in American Politics

by Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, Sanford F. Schram

Disciplining the Poor explains the transformation of poverty governance over the past forty years -- why it happened, how it works today, and how it affects people. In the process, it clarifies the central role of race in this transformation and develops a more precise account of how race shapes poverty governance in the post-civil rights era. Connecting welfare reform to other policy developments, the authors analyze diverse forms of data to explicate the racialized origins, operations, and consequences of a new mode of poverty governance that is simultaneously neoliberal -- grounded in market principles -- and paternalist -- focused on telling the poor what is best for them. The study traces the rolling out of this new regime from the federal level, to the state and county levels, down to the service-providing organizations and frontline case workers who take disciplinary actions in individual cases. The result is a compelling account of how a neoliberal paternalist regime of poverty governance is disciplining the poor today.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Race, Poverty, Sociology, Economics, Class

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Alix · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent example of using multiple methods to answer an important question: how does the state really treat people on welfare? The book brings together a historical discussion of the development of the US welfare state with an in-depth analysis of how devolution and contracting create race-based disparities in treatment for people seeking help.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great info, super boring

[Boreal · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than a decade on from its writing, this dense work uncovers so much about the way in which the America of today approaches the idea - and avoids the reality - of poverty. It was an especially brutal book to read in the fall of 2024, I admit, but all of it was worth reading. I can see how we got to where we were in 2011, when this was written, and I can trace the continuation of that arc to where we are now.

[Hilario Morales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Temporary review:
So far I’m convicted in spirit and so moved by the book, 5/5 stars.

Over recent decades, poverty policy has shifted from providing meaningful support to enforcing behavioral control, transforming aid into a tool for regulating marginalized communities rather than addressing the root causes of inequity. From its origins, this approach has been shaped by racial biases that normalize whiteness and systematically exclude Black and immigrant populations.

The pathologization of Blackness has long served as America’s alibi, equating Black identity with poverty and dysfunction while using elitism to reframe systemic inequities and racialized exclusion as matters of personal responsibility. In this logic, welfare reform, work requirements, and surveillance are cast not as mechanisms of control but as moral correctives for alleged cultural deficiencies. Such narratives render poverty a pathology rather than the outcome of redlining, labor exploitation, or disinvestment, allowing elites to mask political culpability beneath the rhetoric of fairness. This is the essence of neoliberal paternalism: withdrawing structural support while forcing individuals to prove their deservingness, and turning humanity into a conditional privilege that shifts the weight of inequity onto the individual and grants recognition only when Black survival is subjected to scrutiny, policing, and surveillance. Black success, meanwhile, is tolerated solely when it props up the legitimacy of the very system that diminishes it.

[Ismail N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic text on how the neoliberal paternal welfare system disciplines poor people through the structure of policy. Pay close attention to Chapter 10 as it discusses the client-case manager relationship. Using intersectionality, the authors paint a vivid picture of how implicit racism is reenacted through the caseworker's interaction with the client. 10/10

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sometimes reads like an academic text, which it is, but otherwise pretty understandable. I learned a lot about TANF which is the one form of public assistance I was never eligible for, and now I'm glad I wasn't. Which is the point of all the requirements - to keep people from going on welfare.

[Marlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

For when you want to get pissed off but then motivated

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring mixed method study on poverty governance and 1996 welfare reform

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Persuasively argued and well-written. Essential for anyone in social policy, I think.

[JonD · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book sums up a huge portion of the mechanisms underlying systemic racism. It details in plenty of depth how we have shifted to color-blindness in law amid local variation in policy (depending on concentrations of Black people) to create massive race-based injustice systematically. Worst of all, it makes fairness a way to impose suffering.

Most telling, this book shows that this shift has been worst since Clinton caved to the Republicans on Welfare Reform, making the current system solely racial, independent of party. Oakland CA and Detroit MI are as likely to be systematically racist as is a city in AL or MS.

By sticking only to the research they have done, both statistical and qualitative, the authors make a case that is hard to forget.